The Crocheted Blanket

Sometimes I gather up all of the literary bits and bobs that litter my desk, laptop and brain and stitch them all together, like the crocheted blankets of my youth and, somehow, these ill-matched, crudely conjoined conglomerations of bits and pieces often become the posts that make the most sense to me.  Whether that says more about them or me is something that you alone can determine, but if I am honest, it is how most of my life comes together: light squares, dark squares, holey squares, big squares, small squares and squares that really aren’t quite square at all, just tacked together with hope, red wool, gallons of tea and stacks of custard creams.  The dark squares, as long as they remain in the minority, are subsumed into the brighter whole.  Viewed from an appropriate distance, like Vladimir Putin, it is just possible to pretend that they don’t exist at all.  Somehow, despite them having a TOG rating equivalent to a knitted sieve and the weight of a wet sheep, under a crocheted blanket is always the warmest place to be.

It is my New Year Intention to have many fewer dark squares in my blanket, to try and cast away the concerns over all the things I cannot control.  Most of the time I am little more than an interested bystander in my own affairs, let alone those of anybody else.  I will enjoy everything that I can enjoy, and endure everything else just long enough for me to reach something else to enjoy.  Carrying worry, like an eyelash under a contact lens, might not seem much, but it doesn’t half mess up your day.  If I spend my entire life worrying about what might be, I will have no time left for what already is and, at my age, what already is, is unlikely to be augmented too much further.  Things are probably just about as good as they are going to get – and when I look at just how bad they could be, that’s really not too bad at all – so that is what I am going to carry forward from now on.

It is my intention to turn my face away from politics – and more specifically those who ply it as a trade.  They cannot be trusted with lives or emotions.  They would do well to remember that it doesn’t matter how much you spray the air, it still smells when you’ve done a giant poo in somebody else’s bathroom.  It is my hope to head into the New Year with a sunnier disposition – or at least one with less inclination towards snow at higher altitudes.  I am intent upon raising my cloud level above the neckline.  I am currently working on a project that, aside from a little skill in setting ducks in rows, requires nothing from me other than writing funny lines and throwing ideas around with somebody who makes me laugh almost all of the time, and that makes me very happy.  I realise that it is extremely bad form to laugh at your own jokes, but is it ok to smile at the fact that you can still make them?

My crocheted Blog Blanket has been on the go for over four years now, and I hope that most of it keeps you warm.  I enjoy the routine it gives me and occasionally the odd little patterned doily I produce.  I have decided that I must not fret too much about the occasional dropped stitch as long as, on the whole, the entire tatty, harlequin poncho manages to keep most of the cold out.

Now, what have I done with that old yarn?…