My sister lives in Sydney and was to be driving down with her husband and son this morning. However, the south east coast of Australia is being lashed by fierce storms at the moment and even yesterday, Sydney residents were being urged to change their long weekend plans and stay home. My sister says it wasn't so bad when they left this morning but an hour out of Sydney (on a 3 hour trip) they'd been stuck on the side of the road for ages because visibility was so bad. There were accidents, chaos, traffic backed up for miles.
They took the first exit and headed for home.
I'd rather they were home when I read about tragedies such as this.
This doesn't mean I'm not terribly upset. For purely selfish reasons such the fact that I longed to spend a weekend with my nephew, Will, I'm bitterly disappointed. Oh and I have a 3.8kg (8lb) turkey sitting there needing to be cooked. I understand an 8lb turkey is small by American standards, but given I've never cooked one before and was only serving 5 people, one of whom doesn't eat a lot, I thought I'd start small.
I could just freeze it, I guess, in my not so large freezer.
I also have a fairly large Christmas cake I was working on just as they called this morning to say they weren't coming, as well as a lot of extra ingredients I might not normally have in the house.
I can hear you all saying now, 'invite other people!' Fair call, but there's one small problem with that.
Canberra is deserted on the Queen's Birthday long weekend. It's that kind of place. Everyone gets out. I do know some people are who are still around and I will probably make a call or two in a while, but you know, I just want to wallow for a little bit. I'm allowed.
I want to not look at the Christmas decorations I managed to scrounge up in the middle of the year. I want to not look at the hat I've had waiting for Will for weeks (I'll see him next weekend when I head up to Sydney, but still, it won't be under a pretend christmas tree, will it?). And most of all, I'm going to ignore that bloody turkey for now, until I have decided what I'm doing.
I think I'm entitled to a brief pity party, right? For the record, I know my sister is bitterly disappointed too. But better safe than sorry.
In the meantime, because I've been so tired in the evenings with all the preparation for Christmas, I've just thrown myself into the malabrigo scarf because it takes no effort at all. It'll be done in no time at this rate.
I've included my slipper here for scale. Not a bad effort for two nights' work is it? This is one very fast scarf because it's done on 6.5mm needles. Even Sean commented last night that after all the work on small DPNs I've been doing, and even the 3.75mm addi turbos for the steeked jacket, these 6.5mm bamboo circulars look enormous. They took a bit of getting used to but I can definitely see a place for larger gauge projects.
When the desire for a red malabrigo scarf hits, you don't want to wait too long.
Bells
Edited later to add: all is well. Some dear friends who haven't gone away are coming over for Christmas lunch now so I don't have to find room in the freezer for a turkey!
|