Showing posts with label ladies who lunch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ladies who lunch. Show all posts

Thursday, 17 June 2010

Ladies Who Lunch

Yesterday evening saw me at the knitting group. I have come to really enjoy the company of this group of ladies (and occasionally some men) on a Wednesday evening especially because it can be enjoyed with a bottle of wine or some other alcoholic beverage (I have acquired a taste for strawberry perry). It can be rather amusing to watch the expressions on the faces of passers by when they see 20 or more people sitting down in a shop knitting and chatting.

Yesterday saw me showing off my sock designs to a few of the people present and they received many favourable comments. When I showed the first design (the only one of which actually has a pair of socks at the moment) I was immediately asked if the pattern was for sale. When I showed my 'Cards' series of socks there was more encouragement and amazement at my creativity.

I explained that I had even more design ideas tucked away in my brain and that I had given up plans to submit a lace design for the competition so that I could concentrate on socks as my entries for this year. It was at this point that Lorraine the lovely lady who works in the shop and answers all my emails about competition entries suggested that this could be the basis of a book. This set me thinking and maybe she is correct. Perhaps this competition has given me the push in the direction that my life needs to move in to. They say that there is a book in all of us, and it is possible that my book is not a novel or a piece of historical research as I had previously thought but something for knitters everywhere.

As I was chatting with the lady who got me to join the knitting group she asked if I was doing anything today. When I said that I wasn't, she suggested that I might like to join a small number of the knitting group who lunch together on a Thursday and who then make their way to I Knit London for the Thursday knitting group. With nothing of any importance in my diary for today, that is exactly what I am going to do.

I am going to be a lady who lunches and who knits too.

Thursday, 12 February 2009

A Busy Week

It's been a busy week this week, and it hasn't finished yet. After my successful meeting with 'S' on Monday and the lovely lunch, Tuesday was a rather quieter day. I sat at home trying to decide what I was going to include in the lecture and making some notes and gathering material for it. Actually, I was procrastinating a bit because I could have started writing it but I just couldn't face doing that.

Yesterday I was out to lunch again. Yes, I know, I'm getting to be a lady who lunches. I met one of my friends from Corfu. She is English and married a Corfiot and has now lived in Corfu for more than 20 years. My husband and I met her the first time that we went to Corfu and over the years a lovely friendship grew. She was one of the people who helped me during the first dark days after my husband died. Anyway, she comes home for a couple of weeks every February to spend some time with her Mum and when she is over we always go out for lunch one day. We found a lovely little restaurant not far from Westminster Bridge a couple of years ago and we always go there for our meal, sitting at the same table each time.

We had a lovely meal, a bottle of wine, and sat and talked for about two and a half hours. Although we talk on the phone occasionally, there was a lot to talk about this time because I have not seen her for a year. This is because for the first time in 20 years I didn't make a visit to Corfu last year. Up until then I had been every year since 1988, once a year when my husband was alive, but two or three times a year since his death. Anyway we caught up on all the news, and had a lovely time. On leaving the restaurant, we told the waiter that we would be back the same time next year. I'm not sure that he believed us, but it is true, when she is over this time next year, my friend and I will be back there for another meal.

Today I have actually managed to do some real work on the lecture. I also have to dream up some practical work for the students to do, and I think that I have found the perfect exercise so now all I have to do is write to 'S' and see that it meets the course requirements. As far as the lecture itself is concerned, I have started to create the PowerPoint slides that will go with the lecture and done some work on the script itself. I've come to a bit that is going to cause me a certain amount of angst to write, so I have decided to call a halt for the day. I'm quite pleased with what I have done so far, but need to really buckle down to it tomorrow.

However, before I do that I have to go for my Friday morning psychotherapy session. I never know what direction that the therapy is going to take before we get started, but one of the things that I might see if we can discuss is the thing that is causing me the angst in writing this lecture. We have touched on it a couple of times in recent weeks but perhaps now is the time to really thrash it out. Maybe once that is done I can view it a little more dispassionately and it not cause me so much of a problem. It is something that I have to come to terms with if it is not going to cause me problems when I actually deliver this lecture. It's not going to look too good if I end up in tears talking about something that is the real focus of the lecture, especially as I have been asked to make this a regular part of the course module and I will be delivering it several times a year.

Anyway, this evening I am going to do some knitting and not worry about the lecture. The Shetland lace shawl is growing slowly, but at the risk of regretting my words, I have not made any mistakes on the lacy borders and I am now half way to completing them. I have a few complicated rows coming up, but nothing that I can't handle, so with a bit of luck by this time next week I should have finished the borders and be working on the lacy edging. I need to get a move on with it because the baby who it is for was born last week. Still, it is an heirloom piece, so a few weeks late shouldn't matter too much.