Lack of mobility has shrunk my universe. Normally I run up and down stairs all day, rush hither and thither doing stuff and seldom sit down in one place for very long unless I’m working. Even when I’m sewing I’m still up and down and buzzing about.

Practical necessity has curtailed all that flibbertigibbettyness. Now I think long and hard about whether I really want or need to go upstairs, whether my children could actually take the train rather than having me pick them up, whether I can actually manage just fine without undertaking an expedition (which is what it feels like right now) to buy fresh bread.

It’s actually all dovetailed nicely with my feelings in the New Year that I want to cut down, and use what I have. Using what I have is featuring really heavily here at the moment!

Yesterday’s dinner was home made tomato soup made only with ingredients from the storecupboard, homemade croutons made from two day old bread (Swiss bread goes stale really fast!) and a fresh home-baked loaf with some ham and cheese. Way easier than a trip to the store, cost next to nothing and everybody loved it. I also didn’t need to move more than 6 feet from my sofa!

I’m keeping life really simple and it feels good. The weather is lousy out anyway, so it’s fine to be just home, by myself and resting up and doing little things. I love the peacefulness of it. It’s just how it is and I’m going to make the most of it I can.

I did trek out to the hospital today for my MRI – and wasn’t happy because the lift was broken (in a hospital, I ask you!). I still don’t know more about my knee because the radiologist wasn’t giving anything away. Tuesday, folks, Tuesday I’ll know more. Until then I’ll be patient. It doesn’t seem to be improving much though.

Now I’m going back to work. A little later on I’m going to stop and watch the World Cup skiing from Wengen – and remember fondly one of the steepest ski slopes in Europe which I fell down in terrible weather conditions and broke my ribs. Does anyone see a pattern emerging here?

You wouldn’t be the first person to tell my that I’d be much safer sticking to my sofa!

Have a great Friday!

Helen

PS No photo today I’m afraid because the camera is two floors up and I ain’t budgin!

May I present …

my backlog…

a book stash to rival the yarn stash and the fabric stash.

I had made a little headway with the situation, but of course everybody knows how much I love to read and so I was inundated with oodles of lovely books for Christmas and my birthday.

I’m not going to buy any more.

For a very long time. Make that a very, very long time!

I’m going to be particularly wary of Amazon, which I now see is a very dangerous place to go, especially late at night, when I am clearly a very weak creature!

Yet another excess that I need to get under control. I’m rather looking forward to it actually – there are some really interesting nuggets among this little lot!

I’ve already read two very good books since New Year: Inheritance by Christopher Paolini (the last part of the Eragon saga) – which was a huge tome, but I loved it and couldn’t put it down, and Siege by Helen Dunmore, an excellent novel about the siege of Leningrad in the Second World War.

There’s plenty more where they came from, but I think I need to be snowed in for …oooh…five years!

Helen

Is there anything to beat a bit of tea and knitting?

Tea and knitting with a kindred spirit? Lovely. I can’t think of a nicer way to spend the afternoon and rest my leg at the same time. Although it has to be said that Mel and I didn’t actually do any knitting – but we did discuss knitting at length, ooh and aah over current projects and Mel was kind enough to decipher my unintelligible German pattern (in the twinkling of an eye I should add – clever girl!).

I also discovered that one front of my cardigan is, ooh, a good inch shorter than it should be. No idea how that happened as I’m sure I measured a lot. Sorting out that little mishap is first on my list today – which I’m fired with enthusiasm about as I now know what to do next!!

You might want to take a look at Mel and her knitting over at The Little Washhouse. She’s made some absolutely adorable baby shoes for her new granddaughter Mireille.

Mel and I actually met because she read my blog and we discovered that we only live about an hour or so apart. Our paths would probably never have crossed otherwise. It has been so nice to discover someone else here who shares my woolly fixations and doesn’t think I’m bonkers. She may be the only one, mind you!

Thank you for the hyacinths Mel. A first taste of spring…or a little bit of hope that spring will arrive eventually!

Helen

This is it. This is my little corner, by the window and right next to the kitchen, with a view of snow capped peaks out to towards the Austrian border. I’ve moved my trusty basket of goodies here and with Radio 4, my knitting, the laptop and my odds and ends, this is where I’m staying. Or that is, this is where I’m staying till I hobble off to the doctor in a little while. I’ve reached the delightful heights of hobbling, which is probably just as well, because I was extremely dangerous with my crutches and am convinced that I would have had an even worse accident if I’d carried on with them. I never could get along with additions to my limbs – tennis racquets, hockey sticks and now I see, crutches are just not for me. They require some form of extended co-ordination which I singularly fail to possess.

Anyway, it’s Monday. School and work have started up again and I am delightfully, no, positively blissfully alone. Not being able to rush around takes some getting used to. Normally I’m up and down our three flights of stairs a zillion times a day and I’m such a flibertygibbet I jump from this to that and always have trouble settling. Now I seem to have no choice. I can manage the stairs, but very slowly and without being able to carry anything much. So I’ve just decided that I’m going to be sensible and stay resolutely put in my corner.

It’s actually rather nice. Periodically I do have a little potter just to keep my circulation going as my lower leg started swelling up a little alarmingly yesterday, but I’m really sticking at potter level and nothing more. My salvation is that one extremely helpful daughter and her father took down all the Christmas decorations yesterday and we cleaned the living room – which means that I’m relishing that lovely post-Christmas decluttered feeling – and it’s clean, so I’m not itching to be washing floors or anything silly.

I’m seriously considering starting my first pair of socks of the year, even though I know I should really be knuckling down and finishing my cardigan. I’m being totally tempted by this…

Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop Yarn in Dreamer.

Well, could you resist?

Helen

What a day yesterday was! We kept a close eye all day on the internet to check on the situation on the roads and rail line out of Andermatt. The kids were press-ganged into packing and helping to clean the flat so that we could leave at a moment’s notice. The weather, which had been fairly quiet in the morning, started to deteriorate again and it really looked like we might be stuck for a good long time. On top of that, there was constant noise from helicopters and explosions all day trying to move loose snow and trigger avalanches.

At 10am, we were told to check back at 11, then at 1pm and then 2.30. Suddenly at 1 we heard that there would be five trains leaving in the afternoon, but still no news on the road situation. At that point I decided to send our visitors home on the train – although I suspect that they may have preferred to stay and be snowed in and unable to go to school on Monday! So visitors dispatched, the rest of us prepared to sit it out, when suddenly we were informed that the road would be opening at 2.30pm.

Not knowing how long it would stay open there was then a frantic push to finish cleaning and packing and hit the road by then. I knew I couldn’t drive the Mini – it’s a stick shift and small, so involves a lot of (now impossible) knee bending, but luckily I could manage in the Volvo – which is automatic and I could have the seat far enough back that my left leg was fairly comfortable. So my dear husband set off in the Mini (without chains!) and I followed behind.

We joined a long slow convoy out of town and down the mountain. There was a lot of evidence of avalanches that had come down and pretty scary-looking snow masses that looked like they would come down any moment. The road itself had been cleared really well, so at the first parking spot people were frantically removing their chains – but not my psychic husband!

I can only say that it was a very strange experience, driving down and hoping to goodness that the experts knew what they were doing and that we weren’t about to be engulfed in an avalanche. Part of the road is under a big canopy and I’m sure I only drew breath once I got to those sections. Otherwise it was a slow and steady trail of cars that made their way to the valley floor and I guess every one of us sighed with relief when we got there.

So now I’m home and trying to rest my leg as much as possible. Our house is hopeless for anyone with mobility issues as we live on 4 floors – and you know what it’s like when you come home from vacation anyway!!!

School starts again tomorrow and then it really will be back to normal(ish) life again.

Helen