Author: Nikki

I know, I haven’t updated for an age… But life has been really busy busy :- work filled, dye filled, home filled, love filled.

I’ve also been “Mini-blogging” with Twitter, the updates of which are showing on the left there… Twitter is good, and make it rather easy to throw 140 Characters about what I’m up to from my phone, so do check there if you are desparate for updates!

My friends always note that I drop off of radar when I’m happy. 😉

Still, thought I’d drop a couple of updates in.

First of all, this piece of lovely I received for my Birthday from Ann:

One lovely piece of Crochet in Noro Silk Garden. It’s been around my neck lots, what with the cold drawing in an’ all!

Secondly, Fluffenstuff is here to stay. The First UK S’n’B show was a resounding, if very very tiring success. It was lovely to meet so many enthusiastic knitters, crocheters, spinners & felters, and I shared my Stall with Ann, who has also gone commercial, and launched her own company, FibreLust on the day.

Third, Cycling still goes well, although I’m having currently having some wrist and shoulder problems. I was loving the MTX, but it needed some TLC, so I took it in for a quote and £230 was the estimate! So, for £280, I bought a new Lady’s Frame Trex 7.1 bike with Front and Seatpost suspension instead! It’s lovely, made of Aluminium rather than Steel, so good and light and as a hybrid bike, it’s build for roads and very whizzy.

I’ve rigged it with a back rack and a pair of very loud pink panners, so I’m not carrying half-a-tonne of wet weather gear on my back, and the Lady’s frame-shape has totally eliminated the saddle sore trouble from where the MTX Men’s frame-shape was too long, and tipping me too far forward, hence pressing my entire weight on my pubic bone… Not fun. So, that is sorted, but the change in angle in my arms and shoulders is now killing my wrists.

So, some better padded gloves appear to be in order, as well as looking at getting some “cow-horn” type handle bars and a swan-neck extender, to give me a far more “sit-up-and-beg” posture to relieve the pressure and please my Osteo.

Osteo you hear me say? Yep, October was a Whirl of Backpain. Managed to put my lower back into spasm. NOT GOOD. So, off to the Osteo I went, who diagnosed that the spasm was my muscles protecting a Capsular Strain and Irritated Fassets. I’ve had to cut treatment short, as we have been rather monumentally busy at work, but she sorted out me out enough to not “be broken” anymore, even if I’m not really “fixed”. So, I have to get back to that as soon as it calms down again…

Forth, Work. I know, I’m not really a talker about work on here, but we’ve been having *lots* of change here. There has been a move to centralisation for a while, I think I’ve mentioned it before, and as part of that, they want to naturally eliminate as many contract positions as they can… So, last Wednesday, I had an interview for the job I’ve been in for the last 2.5 years. The reorganisation is moving very fast though and as part of that, I’ve also been offered a secondment within the new structure to ICT Moves Co-ordinator, which will mean no longer doing support (Hoorah!!!)

So, I’m trying to rapidly wrap-up the projects I’m working on, and hand over the support knowledge to another member of the team As per usual though, I’ve got about 10 days to hand over ~2.5 years worth of knowledge… talk about tight planning eh?

Fifthy, and not by any means leastly, Love. “Happy happy joy joy” is the common theme. *beams*

Look for a knitting update in the next post!

Good grief! You would have thought I’d had have updated before now… Too much RL again eh?

Indeed, so much stuff… Almost too much! Not all of it bloggable either.

So, the good stuff… My relationship with T. I haven’t really spoken lots about him, partly because I didn’t really want to jinx it all… mentioned him here and there, but generally, I’ve stayed schtum over all the issues that came between us actually having a “real-live-grown-up” relationship. I think now though, I can live a little more out loud about him, as it really is all coming out perfectly. He’s also one of the reasons I’m not at my home PC as often, as he now has far more time to be with me than he did when we started up our relationship…

Other reasons are knitting… The Red hat and scarf combo have come on apace. No new photo’s, soon I promise, and no new WIPS, or progress on older ones. No dyeing either, which is niggling me lots…
I’ve also been tidying, and have the 3rd booked off to get “stuff done”… which reminds me, I need to call the tradesmen to organise a few stragglers! I have a new cooker to fit, and a washing machine to get fixed.

Oh, and cycling is  all good as well… I’m physically slimmer, even if the scales stubbornly still tell me I weight the same… So, I know I’m carrying far more muscle than I was 7 months ago, and my stamina is certainly much improved. The best example is Mount Pleasant… When I started cycling, I struggled to get up the hill there in L1 gear. Now, I’m doing it in M3! Still puffed at the top, but it always makes me so proud of myself!

I really do need to get back to Low-carbing though, I think that will be the next best thing that I do to my body.

So, life is good right now. Long may it continue!

Remember this and this?

I cycled about 14 miles on Sunday, over to K&A’s for Sunday Lunch and back… It didn’t floor me at all in the way I was expecting, in fact, most of the way (Apart from the ruddy steep uphill at Vestry Road! Which of course, was cool on the way back 😉 ) was very easy on me, and I really enjoyed the ride.

Not so sure it would have been as fun if it had rained though 😉