In which we are one whole week into a new year

Doesn't time fly?  At this rate it will be Christmas again before we know it.

We are on the third day of a predicted four day extreme heatwave, and it is nasty hot.  Not quite record-breaking hot, but still most unpleasant.  It is certainly hot enough that I feel ill, and am guzzling water like there's no tomorrow.  We have today and tomorrow still to survive, then hopefully a little cooler.....for a while, at least.  Rain would be nice too, but we may have to wait for that.

Happy to report that our son is doing very well, and is hoping to go home in a few days.

This morning I took down the decorations, such as they were.  You know how some people just love Christmas and decorate their whole house from top to bottom?  We don't.

 Family room tree, on my grandmother's 1924 Singer 66 treadle.

This tree is on Kevin's mother's Singer from the late 1960s.  Just as well we have sewing machines to decorate, isn't it?  The pretty mat is from my ukulele-playing friend Claire.

That's it, folks.  The extent of Christmas 2017 in this house.

A week before we came home to a flooded house my jumper was finished, too late for last winter but nice and early for winter this year.

My own design.  For the basic jumper I used a Patons Classics book - one of two books sadly lost in the flood, not yet replaced but will be because it's so useful - and the travelling rib panel on the front is from a Patons leaflet with instructions for four different Aran-style jumpers published in the early 1990s.  Yarn is Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 8 ply in Hydrangea, blue with a hint of lavender.

Right now I don't have a sewing room at all.  Machines and furniture were moved out a couple of days ago, so the floor could be washed and so the furniture which is being thrown out could be removed.  The marks left by the flood have now been cleaned and the floor is spotless.  While standing in an empty echoing room I looked at the walls and thought to myself.......I thought......."perhaps this is the time to paint the walls?"  Which will be done later in the week when it's not so hot, then machines and stuff can be moved back in, and replacement furniture purchased, and I will be a happy woman again.

The tumbler project is not packed away so at least boredom can be staved off occasionally, and there is always an instrument to pick up and plink because there is a big gig coming up in a couple of weeks.  Those hexies are now being joined into big flowers for the top and bottom of a pincushion.

Now that the Christmas/New Year break is over we are hoping to hear about our house repairs, what is to be done and when.  We're looking forward to having it all done, finished and put back to rights again, we have had enough of living in limbo.

"The obligation of an introduction.
Two persons who have been properly introduced have in future certain claims upon one another's acquaintance which should be recognized, unless there are sufficient reasons for over-looking them.  Even in that case good manners require the formal bow of recognition upon meeting, which of itself, encourages no familiarity.  Only a very ill-bred person will meet another with a stare."

Do people still bow on meeting?  It seems they did back in the early 1880s, at least.

Enjoy your days!