It’s very quiet around here today. Just me and a pyjama-clad daughter – and she’s been locked in her room being semi-sick (a sore throat, which according to her makes it OK to spend the day in pyjamas, but which is not sore enough to stop her being on the phone  for hours and hours to her boyfriend, who is similarly sick in St. Moritz) all day. I should add at this point, that I’m a assessed as being really mean because I don’t allow people who are sick to lie around and watch tv all day. This is partly out of principle, partly not to encourage slackers and partly out of self preservation as I couldn’t bear the continual noise of very bad American teenage sitcoms all day.

Later on I’m going for a stroll around the village with my camera. The temperature has already risen today from minus 22 to a positively balmy minus 4 and the sun is shining. One of my goals is to walk all the way up to the military hospital and return my crutches – crutches which I never got the hang of and gave up using on day 2 as I was endangering myself and other people with them. I think I was born with some form of co-ordination lacking – I can’t do with anything added onto my limbs, never could. You don’t want to see me playing golf, or tennis…or using crutches either, for that matter.

Otherwise I’ve been knitting, doing some very gentle yoga and  finished reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. What an excellent book – it’s been on my waiting to be read pile for a very long time. Now I really must try to get hold of the film. I’m trying to work out which role James Dean played.

The troops will be home from the mountain fairly soon – apparently the skiing is better than perfect….grrr….but it’s good they are having a great time. My time will come again once this wretched knee is healed!

Helen

I’m back up in Andermatt for the first time in over a month. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much snow here. It’s wonderful – icy, icy cold (minus 20 in the village this morning), but the snow is sparkling, clean snow that squeaks when you walk on it and the air is  fresh, bright clean air that invigorates. No skiing for me this time, but I’ve got a big stack of books and a bag full of knitting projects to keep me out of mischief. And then there’s always cooking and shopping and cleaning…..:)

My knee is better enough that I can walk around the village a little and take photos – and believe me, it feels really good to be out. I’m really itching to get back to being active again. This morning I even did some yoga (not involving knees) in the living room, much to the guffaws of my husband sitting reading on the sofa. He doesn’t get it, but I don’t care. It felt good to move, to stretch some of the kinks out of my back…..slowly but surely I’m on the road to recovery.

How’s the snow at your house?

Helen

Sorry….I just couldn’t resist….just like a little child with a new toy!

Helen

For a long time now I’ve been very envious of all the bloggers out there who make lovely mosaics from their photos. I finally got Annabella to tell me the secret ….and here’s my first effort. It absolutely wasn’t as daunting as I thought it would be – but proved to me that I have to have a sensible filing system for my photos – the current situation is hopeless!

This is a real mishmash of old and new quilts….

What fun! You’ll be seeing more of these!

Helen

If you happened to drop by yesterday you might have seen that I had some unwanted visitors. For the second time.

Luckily for me I have Eric to rescue me in such situations and thankfully it wasn’t my blog that was hacked, but rather the server that the blog is on. At times like last night I am SO glad that I have an administrator who knows his stuff to look after me. It doesn’t cost an arm and a leg and at times like yesterday Eric proves himself worth his weight in gold.

It does all make me wonder what the point is? What do hackers actually get out of it all? Do they fell good about all the hassle they cause us all? Wouldn’t there be far better ways to get their point across. My hackers didn’t seem to be putting much of a politcal point over yesterday….more a case of nahnahnanana look what I can do!  What a waste of time and effort.

So if my hackers are reading this – which I’m sure they aren’t, but just in case – I’d really like to tell them that it would be better for themselves and everybody else if they got themselves a life and used their undoubtable skills in a positive way. I think they would feel better about themselves, don’t you?

On that happy note I’m going back to my quilt. My husband took one look at the blocks laid out on the floor yesterday and said ‘New England’ – which was just the impression that I was after. Pretty good, huh!

Helen