Jiggety Jig

Being discharged from hospital was a decidedly unique experience. Nevermind the visit to the 'discharge lounge', a tasteful name if ever I heard one, where we were required to wait while the discharge paperwork was filled in -- that was unique enough in its own right. A bunch of patients sitting around, waiting for doctors and comparing the drastic nature of their ailments. But coming home was weird. I suddenly had a lifelong condition I had to learn to manage, and I wasn't surrounded by highly capable staff who were ready to catch me if I screwed up. My mother likened it to coming home with a new baby for the first time: a period of unease and readjustment and acceptance. M took me around to his parents' house for a bath -- we don't have a tub at our place -- and it was bliss. The hospital ward had made me so stiff and weary, and a hot bath was ideal.

I had the rest of the week off work, thank heavens: I don't know how I would have coped going back right away, since I was still adjusting to the medication and still trying to get my head around all of it. I expect that my first day back at work will have me recounting my experience half a dozen times or so, before finally, blessedly, returning to normal. I've missed working. The house is eerily tidy, which comes from boredom. I've decided it's a very bad sign when I do the dishes every day.

Today I filled in the hours by baking (no pictures as yet: my laptop cable broke and I'm blogging from someone else's computer). I made a spinach and cheese loaf, which is a gamble. I don't think I've ever made bread before, although M is a whiz at it. Still, it looks the part and I keep ducking into the kitchen to gloat over it. I'm waiting for it to cool, and then I might have some with cheese on it. Mmmmm. I also whipped up a batch of M&M cookies, which found favour with visitors and used up the last of the M&Ms satisfactorily.

And I've been knitting! Retrospectively, I think I must've been getting sick for some weeks prior to, you know, being sick. I haven't felt this keen in all my projects for a while, and it's good to start working on long-idle projects and bring them up to completion. Today I finished a piece that I will felt over the weekend, which is the exciting gamble part. I love felting, which is weird; it goes against my favourite thing in knitting. I love knitting's undo-ability, and felting really is one of the techniques that you simply can't undo. One way only. But you can make some really funky things with felt, and it's got a robustness lacking in knitted fabric. The knitted clogs I made my parents for Christmas have been among my favourite projects ever - pictures after the laptop is up again.