A bonus day

On Saturday I scored a free day.

My day was originally meant to go as follows:

• Leave home before 07h00 to get to orienteering to set up the start and finish while Garry and Brian were putting out controls (our club was organising the event). 
• Make sure I have my navigation course stuff is in the car should I finish late at O and have to go straight to Delta Park. 
• Head for Delta Park by 13h00 to put out cones for the navigation course activities.
• Navigation course (two sessions) from 14h30 - 17h00. Pack up, check cones etc.
• Home.

Instead, beautiful rain was pouring down since the day before.

I did get to orienteering nice and early. I was fairly excited to be wearing my rain jacket and rain pants. I bought the most fabulous rain pants last year in Ireland before the 24hr rogaine - haven't worn them since (not much opportunity here).

 By the time I arrived the decision had been made to cancel the event because the sports fields (and everything else) were so waterlogged. Not great for the fields to have runners tramping all over them and also not entirely pleasant for the runners to be out there.

I was cheery in the morning about the weather clearing... but by the time I got home after 09h30 (hung around chitter-chattering at O) I'd faced the reality it wasn't going to lift. So, I got to work contacting my navigation course people to cancel navigation training. They all seemed relieved; not to be missing the course but to be able to stay at home all warm and cosy.

The thing with cold and wet weather is that activities can be done but they're just not as much fun and ones focus shifts from the activities to keeping warm and dry.

So, I now had a WHOLE open day ahead. An absolute treat. And how did I spend it?

On the couch. With my cat (she wouldn't leave my side). Alias, House and Downton Abbey DVDs. Cuppa tea. And a new crochet project. OMG - what an indulgence! By 21h00 I couldn't watch another series episode - totally saturated, like the lawn ;)

I figured that I would have been busy the whole day and not able to get to other tasks so I may as well ignore those other tasks even though I had time and opportunity to do them.

Free days really are wonderful - especially when they're unexpected. Definitely most welcome.

This is the first of two projects that I have on the go. I've seen so many fine crochet items around and I've wondered about how they are made. So, I found a pattern, bought yarn and a thin 2mm hook (the smallest that I've ever used). Took me a while to get used to the hook and thin yarn. I ended up wrapping duct tape around the handle of the hook because I was struggling to manipulate it (too thin!). These are the first two of ten motifs that go around the outside. There's another whole story on the inside of the overall shape. It takes about 1h30 to two hours to make one of these 'flowers' so this project is going to take me a long time to finish. But it will be quite beautiful when it is done.