snowballing in summer

or, how an artist/housewife starts the day with good intentions but gets ambushed by stuff.


This morning I woke up thinking about my machine embroidery sampling and longing to get back to it after a busy family weekend. A friend had asked me for coffee first thing, and as she lives not too far away I planned to walk round and get some much-needed exercise, calculating that I'd be back by lunchtime and ready to start work.

Then, I remembered that we needed milk, bread and apples. Bother. There is no shop on the way to Clare's. But then I remembered my bike and my resolution to use it more! Hooray! I would go on the bike and make a detour to the shop and still be back by lunchtime because the bike is quicker.

BUT. When I got downstairs to the kitchen to make breakfast I quickly realised that a lot more eating had gone on during the weekend than I had thought. Not only bread, milk and apples, but orange juice, coffee, bananas, ham... pretty soon I had a shopping list that was falling off the back of the envelope, and far too much to carry on my bike.

Double bother, because this meant going in the car, which meant forsaking my exercise, unless I went to Clare's first and then came back and got in the car and went out again, but by this time it would be really late and eating into my sewing time.

So, reluctantly off I drove, for once remembering my mouse bags, had coffee, went to the supermarket, remembered even more things we needed, went through the whole performance of putting stuff into the trolley, getting it out, putting it in bags, putting them in the trolley, getting them out again and into the car, getting them out of the car and into the house. You know the drill.

Quick! Unpack, put away, make a cup of tea and a sandwich and off upstairs to my artroom.

BUT. When I went to put the fridge stuff away it became clear that it was already far too full of mouldy leftovers to cope with the new arrivals, and when the mouldy leftovers had been removed it became clear that many other unidentifiable things were stuck to the back of the fridge with ice crystals and... yes, you've guessed, I had no option but to defrost the thing. Not only that, but when I went to throw away the horrible mouldy stuff, the basic hygiene of the undersink cupboard was called forcefully into question and a thorough clearout and disinfecting programme became necessary.

By the time all this had been got through, it was mid-afternoon, I was suffering from an ugly blood-sugar crash, two people had left messages on the answerphone which needed a response, and a Big Problem had occurred in the lives of certain teenagers related to me which only I, apparently, could solve, and oh by the way, could they have a lift?

Excuse me a minute...

GAH!!

That's better.

I did make a start on the embroidery, but now of course I'm all cross and bothered and not at all in the calm, creative place. Maybe I need to start again tomorrow... but, horrors, what might happen then???

Exploring the edges where colours meet each other... hopefully more of this tomorrow :-)