Hibernation

Ahhhhh Knit Nottinghamers! I am back! Kind of. I'm still actually in hibernation but I'm poking my little twitchy nose out here for the first time in about three weeks. Smelling the fresh air and maybe explaining myself a little - although, I know I don't have to do that really.

You know how it doesn't rain, it pours? Well, let me tell you a story. Starting a couple of weeks before Christmas:

My mum had a car accident. It wasn't her fault. At a junction, not far from her house, one that she complains is dangerous on a daily basis, some bloke in a big old lorry smashed into the side of her. It looked at the time like it wasn't that bad but when it went into the garage it turned out to be a write off as he'd smashed up the axle. So far, so what? They gave her a quote and she went internet car shopping. She found one in Birmingham (to cut a long story short), rang up my dad who was at a routine eye appointment to ask if they could go to see it the next day, 'no problems!' he said.

Only, at this routine eye appointment they found out that he had a detached retina and if he didn't have surgery before Christmas he'd go blind! It meant that he couldn't really commit to a longish car journey but luckily, Boyf came to the rescue and he drove Mum in his trusty silver Corsa all the way. Dad had the op on the Friday or so before Christmas (I think... time has kind of run into itself) and he's recovering slowly.

In the meantime, the money that the insurance company had offered wasn't enough and more than that, for some reason they couldn't get it into her bank account so they had to send a cheque. In the Christmas post. That went well. Luckily, again, I had some money saved up so I was able to lend her that until the insurance bits came and since then they've also upped the offer to cover the amount she actually needed.

Separately from all of this, the bloody cat went missing. I'd had a gorgeous lesson on the Sunday - got a bit drunk at the end of it and thought all my woes were over. She escaped past my legs through the front door and ran off into the night. We looked for her that evening but weren't too worried. I expected her to turn up the very next morning, but she didn't. Nor that night. I had kind of given up. Despite the fact that she's microchipped a nobody - no vets, no councils, no shelters - had seen her I though she was just squashed somewhere and I tried my best to carry on. Chris was a bit of a mess. BUT on Christmas Eve morning there was an unholy racket and she'd turned up! She looked worse for wear, covered in oil and Chris spent the rest of the day cleaning and brushing her to get it out. She was SO pleased to be back.

We'd decided to spend Christmas at my house to be with the nephew, taking her with us so one of the worst things was that we weren't going to be able to do that. But we did and she loved it! Formed a real bond with my dad - apparently it's not just Chris, she's actually just a man's cat. Little thing.

In the midst of all of this, I got a boil on my bum and had to be on antibiotics - brill!

And, just to pile it on, Mum, who'd be suffering from a cold all the way through this, ended up with a chest infection and an almost complete loss of hearing. She was also on antibiotics.

And THEN! The day before the cat turned up, I got the news that I was having an operation on the hole in my earhole on the 29th. Bloody hell. I said yes because actually the timing worked very well. I've had to have two weeks off work which is difficult when I have, at the very least, a load of full lessons to teach - only I never start my lessons until mid January so that I ease myself in gently. And we're always slow in the first week or so of January so June won't be overrun (although it sounds like she's not been doing too bad... thank you!). I was in and out on the same day, didn't do as much knitting as I thought I would because I was hungry and thirsty and tired and actually had a lovely view out of the window. Chris sat with me all day, bless him. When I came round I felt the worst I've ever felt in my life - you know when you're so drunk you can't close your eyes because the room's spinning. Yeah, that. And one of my lovely customers had reminded me that ears are all to do with balance so I might well have vertigo which is basically just the same feeling so I was all like 'oh my god, I'm going to feel like this for two weeks'. Cue tears, Chris panicing and a lovely and concerned nurse who had definitely seen it all before. I won't go into too much detail about the rest of the week as it involved things that disgust even me (and I love pimpletube) but I seem to be on the mend. Had some stitches out yesterday, but I've got some packing that'll be in for the next couple of weeks. I've made myself a hat to cover my ear because it's suffering with the cold and nobody needs to see this - but I'm happy to show it off if you want to see when I'm back in the shop. Haha!

And that's it. I think. Our horrendous few weeks. It just felt like one thing after another after another with no time to settle or recharge. Which meant that the blog suffered, Facebook suffered and therefore Twitter suffered, the competition that I was running suffered. In fact, the only thing that's not suffered is my bloody knitting and even then I could definitely have done more! So muchos apologeticos, and I've got a few ideas for some blogs over the next couple of days which will be a lovely and slow way to get back into the working mode for my victorious return on Monday.

I hope you had an AMAZING Christmas and new year, a good rest, lots of knitting, a bit too much chocolate and far too much booze (unless you don't drink, then I hope you got Schloer.... mmm delicious).

Love Eleanor. xxxx