Sedentary Jan

It's been getting on for two months since I last blogged and I'm thinking of renaming the blog 'sedentary jan' instead! I feel as if I've done very little except sit for the last month and was looking forward to starting my travels again next week.

I've tried to make use of my idle time in a creative way and finally managed to complete the peg loom rug that I have been working on, on and off, for the last year, in time to give it to Jeni as part of her Christmas present. I'd also made her some blackberry vodka and Dave some sloe gin from fruit I'd picked along the tow path of the Oxfordshire Canal while I was WWOOFing there in September. I miss being able to make jams and chutneys as Christmas presents for people, but its difficult when you have no kitchen to call your own, although I did make lemon curd for other members of the family.

I finally did some spinning on my own wheel a couple of weeks ago – I haven't touched it since I brought it with me to Cheltenham in May 2010! It has a larger wheel than most of the 'standard' wheels that I've come across and, as the engineers amongst you will know, a larger diameter means that it travels further with each press of the pedal, so consequently it spins the yarn very fast – too fast for my inexperienced hands to keep up with most of the time! I have made some very textured yarn which will be fun to weave with but would be impossible to knit with. My spinning tutor told me that once I became more expert at spinning I would wonder how I created such fascinating textures – I think that day could be a long way off! I've already started a new peg loom rug as this can be transported in my car quite easily, as it doesn't take up much room, so I should be able to carry on being creative on my travels.

I also decided to make some of the many photos that I've taken over the last three years, into cards and notelets, so selected 50 of the best and got them printed by Truprint and then bought some card blanks from The Works to mount them on, so anyone who gets a birthday card, Christmas card or note from me will get a photo of a place that I've been to. I was surprised that they looked so good when they were printed as I am certainly not a photographer!

To top off the creativity I regressed to childhood when it snowed and spent quite a long time creating a small flock of snow sheep and also a snow unicorn on my mum's front lawn.

Since I started my blog a few days ago, my Mum has returned from her two week cruise to the Canary Islands, Morocco and Lisbon. Unfortunately they ran into a storm just outside Lisbon, Force 11 gusting Force 12, the worst storm that the crew had ever been out in! There was quite a bit of damage to the ship and much broken crockery. There were also some injuries, Mum being one of them when she was flung across the cabin into the door. This has resulted in at least four broken ribs, as we discovered when we spent three hours in Cheltenham A & E yesterday afternoon, and she is now on strong painkillers. It will be some weeks until she returns to any semblance of fitness, so I have put my plans on hold until she is better. I have had to cancel my first WWOOF placement which I hate doing but, luckily, I have been to Jo and James many times before, so they fully understand the situation and I am due to go back to them again in April.

I already have quite a few places booked up, mainly with previous hosts that I am revisiting (some for the umpteenth time), and also a couple of farm sits. I should really try to get to East Anglia later in the summer as I still haven't been there (or Dorset, Hampshire, Kent, etc). In fact, if you look at the places that I have been on a map I seem to have stayed pretty much to the west of a line drawn north-south through the centre of Britain!

Well, that's it for now - hopefully there will be more to write about in the next few weeks. I hope you are all keeping warm and well - Spring isn't far away, there are snowdrops and aconites out in my mum's garden, and the nights are already drawing out.