Silly Saturday

Jude out shopping

Shells and coral collected from Abu Dhabi beaches back in 2014, you can see more shell collections here.

Traffic

Abu Dhabi heat

sweet sweaty heat to warm me

and heal my tired bones

~

I had to dig deep to find a picture of TRAFFIC for our One-a-Week Photo Challenge this week. There is some traffic there, really there is.

Click on the link to see a whole year of subjects ready and waiting for you to have fun with. This picture goes well with Ronovan’s prompt words of SWEAT and HEAT for his Haiku Challenge.

I had to go back to January 2014 when I went to Abu Dhabi to spend two weeks in the sunshine. That winter I had had one illness after the other and needed to feel sunshine on my body to feel well again. Luckily my brother-in-law was working in Abu Dhabi and I was able to stay with him. I spent long delicious hours wandering the beach collecting shells.

You can see more about what I got up to on that trip here, here, and here

And my favourite shell picture here.

Cathy and I have enjoyed creating a list of prompts for the whole year. Please leave your links to your TRAFFIC photos in the comments and I will include them in my monthly round-up.

 

Abu Dhabi Days

Escaping from the relentless rain here in the south of England, I go over my pictures of the glorious sunshine of Abu Dhabi. I can take my self back there with this view from my bedroom

Join me in soaking up the sunshine,

wandering along the beach …

finding interesting pieces of coral  – is that what this is?

the beach did not at first look promising for beachcombing – one of my very favourite pastimes – but when I looked really closely

there were such delicate colours and beautiful fragments to be found ….

and eventually finding a few larger shells, I started to write names

And then I realised if I did a picture of the name of one of my grandchildren, then all eight needed to be done! More shells needed. …..

I got into a lovely routine of wandering slowly along the beach first thing each morning and ……..

mandalas started to take over from knitting designs.. .  . …

Such a grasshopper mind!

What is it about sorting and arranging that is SO pleasing and relaxing ……

Abu Dhabi

This blog had been a bit quiet recently due to a little bit of hibernation followed by a self styled knitting retreat in Abu Dhabi – oh boy was it WONDERFUL to get some sun on my bones this winter:

My favourite knitting spot

Just soak up those sunny warm peaceful rays!!!!

I went for a fortnight – Now how much yarn would you pack for 14 days of virtually uninterrupted knitting

Of course I took far too much and hoped the airline would not Xray my case to see a severed head and umpteen dodgy looking balls of something.

I went to stay with my brother-in-law who is working in Abu Dhabi. He was at work all day and I had the place to myself to work on my Hat Wig designs.

I thought I was taking so long to get new ones finished because I have so many other calls on my time at home, and a fortnight away would see a batch of new patterns ready to put in the Etsy Shop and on Ravelry. It turns out it just does take me AGES to finish writing a pattern. Ideas, creating designs, knitting new creations – easy, but actually getting them down on paper for others to follow – that is HARD work. If anyone has any tips or computer programmes that can help PLEASE let me know!!!

I like to add photos to the patterns to make them easy to follow

and that does take time of course, but it is the methodical, ordered, organised careful writing of knitting patterns that my grasshopper mind resists.

 

And then of course the view could be a bit distracting ……