Project Shush

This is a baby blanket for a friend at work, whose baby is due imminently.  Well, yesterday, actually.  Although rather unsympathetically, I'm hoping it doesn't arrive for another three or four days as the Browne review into student fees and financing is due to report on Tuesday and life would be everso much easier if the new baby's daddy was at work, helping me to do the modelling.  Oh yes, I've got my prioirities all straight, let me tell you!

The blanket is a lovely mix of fibres.  The white is bamboo derived polyester - reflects the light beautifully and is lovely and soft, but a bit of a bugger to work, if I'm honest - the yarn splits far too easily.  The green is a mix of cashmere, merino and silk.  Not the most practical fibres for a baby blanket, perhaps, but it's washable will be lovely and warm...  All double knit, crocheted with a number 4, beech wood hook, if you're interested...

In the early mornings, I belong to old men.  I leave the house at 6.30 (must remember to bring my insulated mug home), to walk to the station.  The first person I talk to, most days, is the elderly gentleman round the corner who's just taking his dachsunds for a walk.  They are beautiful dogs: miniature, long-haired.  The older one is black, with a delicate curl to her fur and limpid eyes which blend into her coat.  The younger, more excitable one is brown, with black tips.  She's inquisitive and bright, and always thinks she'd like to say hello to me.  After a sniff or two, she remembers I'm a stranger and barks.  Between the impulse and the memory, her owner and I share How Are Yous.

Then, two corners later, there's the singing alarm clock man.  I overtake him and his wife on the final stretch, these days, but they both Good Morning and smile.

Some days, there's an Asian lady, scurrying over the road with a mug of tea, chatting and giggling for a few moments.

Weekends are altogether different.  There's no imperative to get up, but the puppy sneaking onto the bed makes it unpleasant to stay there, and disruptive to fight him off.  So mostly I'm up by 8 at the latest.  Which does constitute a lie in, admittedly.

This morning, coffee and poached eggs and a snuggle on the sofa with my young son.  And here I am, be-dressing gowned, waiting for the bathroom and wondering what to do.  In fact, there's nothing *to* do.  Well, there's a quilt in the making, and a bit of work to finish, but neither of those are speaking to me at the moment.  I suspect I shall browse T K Maxx for a ball dress I don't need until next month, and go to Boots, to find the wherewithal to remove my moustache.  I harbour fantasies of weekends spent in shared endeavour; children and partner and I all wrapped up in mutual delights, and so I can't help feeling a sharp sense of anti-climax at the prospect of shallow, solipsistic mooching.  But the children are of an age where they don't want to be with their parents in public, and the partner doesn't mind sharing the bed with the dog. 

So in the early mornings, I belong to old men, and at weekends I belong to myself.  It's a strange discipline!

I missed my early train. I hustled my low heels out of the house and down the road as fast as I could. A heeled, bustling, grey suited fury.  Overtook the labourers strolling to the cafe, swerved efficiently round the bus drivers in a huddle around their bus door (honestly! They have a whole flippin' bus station! Why do they need to park on the pavement?) and rounded the corner - a full minute, minute and a half from the station door, never mind the platform - just in time to see my (fast) train pull into the platform above me.

Arse.

So now I'm on the middle train, which isn't really mine at all, and I must change at Nuneaton, and then at New Street. Well, it was that  or wait 16 minutes at the station for my late train.

Between Nuneaton and Birmingham, I need to put my makeup on.  I didn't actually mean to turn into the sort of woman who does her makeup on the train, but in the fine judgement between that and getting out of bed before 6am, somehow public vanity seemed like the lesser evil.  Somehow else, the possibility of going to work without makeup was dismissed altogether.  Didn't even enter into the equation.  Such are the hidden shallows of seniority!