What happened to Wednesday?

Elder Son went into town yesterday for the first time since lockdown - specifically since his last hair cut before lockdown, since none of us go to town often. He had his hair cut! Dunno what it looks like yet, as he went to work afterwards & then stayed over at his girlfriend's house.

He'd offered to take me into town too (in which case, he'd have dropped me back home before going off to work), as he knew I had some things to do in town. 

But, it was Wednesday morning, so I decided that watching our vicar live stream the Eucharist was more important than dropping off a bag of books at a charity shop & getting buttons for my cardigan. Especially since this was actually back in church! 

And then I forgot till the afternoon. And as I was knitting on the sofa, watching the last series of Hinterland, I wasn't even on the computer to see a reminder. 

So. What was I knitting that I was so engaged with? I'd finished off Elder Son's fingerless gloves with mittens by sewing on the velcro to hold the mittens open when not needed. And he'd asked for a matching hat if there were enough yarn left, which there is. I found a pattern in the same book I'd used for the gloves, and decided that, instead of the 4 DPNs (double pointed needles) the pattern called for, I was going to do something new and use a circular needle to knit with a magic loop. 

Not very clear, I know. The idea behind the knitting magic loop is that you use the circular needle with a big loop of the flexible plastic at either end of the work. It's all on the needle so doesn't fall off easily as there are only 2 ends, unlike using 4 or 5 DPNs where you've got 8 or 10 ends for stitches to fall off of. And unlike conventional knitting on a circular needle, where you need the needle to be a bit shorter than the length of your work.. 

The magic loop requires a long circular needle.  At last! A use for those circular needles I impulse bought from... Well, I can't remember, but I'm guessing Lidl... a few years ago! 

So I got the right size needle & started to work. I found it more awkward than using DPNs at first as it was a new technique that meant I had to keep unlocking my phone to check what I was meant to be doing next. Also, when you want to buy knitting needles, especially circular needles, you really need to be able to check for any roughness that will catch & drag at your yarn every time you move it from the flexible plastic onto the needle. And, remember I bought them ages ago? They were in a sealed pack at the time, so I couldn't check.

This was hard work, and not brilliant knitting as I had worse tramlines down the sides of the hat than I'd had with the gloves. And when I finished it, I could see it was ridiculously too small. So I frogged it all and wound the yarn back up to wait for the right pattern. And decluttered the annoying needle into the bin. I wasn't doing to donate it so someone else could have the annoying dragging at the yarn.

Then, as I was about to do dinner, Younger Son got up, having gone to bed at 5 am after being on the computer all night. So while I was cooking pasta & sauce, he ate cake that Elder Son had left for him. And then said he didn't like the sauce so couldn't eat it. Mmhm, also full of cake? He said not. 

I told Younger Son to get ready for us to take doggie to the park while I watered the plants in the garden, & then he came & shouted at me for not being ready. His autism means if I've said "We're taking the dog out (after I've watered the plants)", he can only process "We're taking the dog out". So I did bring that on myself, as I know that's how his brain works. But I'd expected him to take longer to get ready.  Hey ho.

So we did take the dog to the park, and went to the tennis court so Younger Son could throw a ball for doggie.  The park tennis courts are now designated dog areas where you can train or exercise your dog off the lead. Particularly useful if you have a rescue lurcher. High prey threshold & we don't know how or for what he'd been trained before needing to be rescued. 

It didn't end badly, but wasn't the day I'd planned for.