All aboard!
“The train now leaving platform 2021 is the 2022 bound for …”
Bound for where? Where are we going? The calendar stretches out before us and as we move into a new year, that delicious moment of infinite possibilities envelops me. All of the goal-setting books tell me I need to know where I want to be before I can get there, but just for a minute or two, I like to stand and look out at all that empty space and imagine that light as a feather, I could be blown anywhere that I was meant to be.
It’s all part of the magic of Christmas and New Year, of course. We can’t always live our lives just waiting to see where we end up, but leaving the itinerary flexible enough to allow a few detours sometimes takes us in unexpected and wonderful directions.
A lot people have wished me a “better year” for 2022, and I know that this year, like 2020 before it, hasn’t been brilliant for everybody, but I’m not going to pretend that 2021 wasn’t a good year for me. Yes, there were times when I wanted to hide under the duvet until whatever it was went away; times of loss, anxiety and more hormone-induced nonsense in my head than I have ever experienced, but I always knew that these times would pass and that I needed them there to remind me of all the good stuff.
The good stuff like being able to talk to you through the blog, being able to share patterns and help people learn to knit their first pairs of socks. Launching my second Winwick Mum Collection of yarn and patterns – Seasons – with West Yorkshire Spinners, being asked to design their Christmas sock pattern once again, and being part of their fabulous collaboration with Dame Zandra Rhodes. Stepping out in front of TV cameras and realising that it was more scary in my head than in real life. Moving my blog to a new platform … now that wasn’t a fun time but I am happier here than ever before – and I think it’s easier to chat to you through the comments now too. Full circle.
And the good stuff like being grateful for my own good health and that of my family. For seeing the sun rise and set every day, and the moon shine bright in the sky. For feeling the sun on my face and watching snowflakes fall gently down from the sky. For being out in all weathers with a dog that reminds me to breathe fresh air and appreciate nature. For spending time with family and friends despite lockdowns thanks to technology and telephones. There are a million things for me to be thankful for in 2021.
If 2021 wasn’t a good year for you then I do wish you a better year, full of hope, joy and the happiest moments of your own. And why shouldn’t it be? We are all entitled to be happy, even if we don’t feel like that all the time! Happy New Year!
The train now leaving platform 2021 is bound for … where shall we go? What adventures shall we have? What new things shall we learn? Those carriages are filled with the marvellous unknown (with maybe just one carriage reserved for sad times because as much as I’d like to,I know we can’t travel without them) and I can’t wait to see where we’re going.
I step off the platform into 2022.
Are you coming?
British Railways (ex-LMS) Jubilee class no. 45596 ‘Bahamas’ Source: https://ingrowlocomuseum.com/
Right behind you Christine, lead on let’s have some well deserved fun this year look forward to joining you.
Brilliant! Happy New Year! 🙂 xx
I love a good train ride! Bring it on! x
Ha ha, choo choo! 🙂 xx
Thank you Christine. Just about to finish another of your socks to send to someone who supported me through treatment for cancer last year. Knitting from a familiar pattern helped calm anxiety and gives a sense of achievement when there is a lot that is still challenging.
Looking forward to the KAL and Happy New Year!
I do hope that you are fighting fit again now and that 2022 is the healthiest of years for you! I think that being able to stay calm during these times is a massive boost to the treatments that you receive so I’m really glad that you were able to take your knitting through it all with you xx
I’m joining you on that train ride. Thankyou for your blogs throughout these crazy times, they have helped me along with knitting, crochet and cross stitch. Knitting a pair of your socks so will join you in the sock along. I wish you and your family a Happy and Healthy 2022 Christine. Much love x
Oh that’s fabulous, and I’m glad you’ve enjoyed reading the blog. I wish you and yours a very Happy New Year too! xx
I’m joining you too! I intend to spend far more time doing what I want to do rather than what others dictate this year, and to not feel guilty for doing so!
Yes! It’s not always easy but it’s OK to live your own life! Good luck – I’m wishing you all the best with it! xx
You are such an inspiration….!!!
Ah, you’re very kind, thank you! xx
Yep, I’m right behind you too. Love your blog, I knitted my first socks over 60 years ago!
Wow, that’s amazing – and what a lot of socks you must have knitted and feet you must have warmed in those years! Brilliant! 🙂 xx
That was lovely to read Christine, thank you.
Thank you! 🙂 xx
Lovely blog as always. Uplifting my soul.
Socks socks I love socks. To knit socks is one of my goals. Love to everyone on this blog and best wishes for a good and Happy year 2022. X
Ooh, this could be your year! Very best New Year wishes to you too! xx
Thank you for a positive and thoughtful start to the year
Thank you – Happy New Year! xx
Wishing you a wonderful 2022 for you and your family Christine. Xxx❤️🌺
Wishing all the best to you and yours as well, Lenore! xx
I’ll step off with you! I’m excited to learn about whatever my health condition is, I also need to move towards my (?) Last year of nursing. Learning how to knit a cardigan, fun things with knitting, little challenges. Gratitude!
That sounds like an exciting year ahead, although maybe a little sad if you are going to say goodbye to a career that’s been a vocation for you. I hope you have plenty of things planned for the transition! Wishing you the very best for 2022! xx
2021 was my year to learn to knit socks and you were my constant guide along the journey. Thank you! Looking forward to continuing the journey in the new year. Best wishes to you and your family for a wonderful 2022.
That sounds wonderful, I’m so glad I could help! Happy New Year to you too! xx
Happy New Year everyone❤! Wait for me please, I have to get my sock knitting gear to take along!!!
Ooh yes, don’t forget that! 🙂 xx
Well said Christine! Happy New Year to all who read this blog. Onwards and upwards!xx
Always! 🙂 xx
I love all of the possibilities of January. Also had a good year in 2021, let’s see what 2022 brings. I hope you have a very happy New Year. CJ xx
I’m glad you had a good year too – and it’s the year I re-discovered your blog so another good thing for me! 🙂 Happy New Year to you! xx
I love your sentiment my dear and the vision of life on a train is a really lovely thought, so count me in and a Very Happy, Healthy New Year to you too my dear! Thank you again for all your inspiration! I do love making socks now, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would 🤣🤣🤣👍👍👍🥰🥰🥰🎉🎉🎉
That’s wonderful to hear! Happy New Year to you too! xx
Such a lovely inspirational post, thank you Christine. Our family have “been through the mill” in 2021, bereavements & trying to deal with our mums fast developing dementia. We are all hoping for much better things this year & I am very very keen to jump on that train!
Oh that sounds like it was a very difficult year for you, and made so much more difficult by the restrictions. You will have been glad to leave 2021 behind and I hope that this year is very much better for you and that you are able to find the help you need with your Mum. Lots of love and best wishes for 2022 xx
I like your train metaphor a lot. It fits with my next project which is that I have the lead role in a local production of The Titfield Thunderbolt so I’m going to be all about trains for the next few months! I’m sure I shall still find time for some knitting though.
Thank you so much for your blogposts – I really enjoy your cheery take on life and I especially enjoyed Blogtober. Wishing you a very happy journey into the forthcoming year x
I must have known! 🤣 Good luck with your production, it’s lovely that you’re able to get out and do that kind of thing again, isn’t it? I am sure you must have missed it very much. I expect there’ll be time for a few rounds between scenes 😀 Wishing you the happiest of years too! xx
Thanks Christine – thanks a lovely way to think of the New Year. I would like to be in the carriage. What an adventure!
Wishing you a happy and healthy new year with plenty of time to enjoy your way x
Wishing you a very Happy New Year as well, with plenty of the best kind of adventures along the way! 😀 xx
Thanks Christine. Let us all join the train and make new memories xx
Yes, definitely! It’s time to do that, I think! 😀 xx
I’m just coming, Christine!
Last year my word for the year was ‘calm’, and for most of the time I really felt like I was, but I’m thinking this year’s might be ‘journey’. We’ve all been on a roller coaster over the last couple of years, so maybe now’s the time to think of where the journey might take us. Exciting, isn’t it!
Ooh yes, that sounds like a perfect word for this year! Jump aboard! 😀 xx
Happy New Year!!!! (may this be not only a good year for us all, but happy sock knitting yr)
Yes, absolutely! Happy New Year to you too! 😀 xx
Wishing you peace, joy and good health in 2022. I am still working on the socks that I started in the beginning of December but my husbands feet are soooo long a size 45.
Oh no! I hope you get to the end of them soon! Happy New Year! xx
My husband just told me that they are a size 46 and are a little short. Unfortunately the yarn is grey and very boring.
Ugh, you need to re-train your husband to wear brighter socks … or at least coloured heels and toes to break up all that solid colour! Good luck with finishing them! 😀 xx
A perfect post put very eloquently. I agree there was lots to be thankful for in 2021. Wishing you lots of adventures on the 2022 train. B x
Thank you – and I’m looking forward to reading about all your adventures as well! 😀 xx
Hi Christine I do love train rides .So bring it on .Already with my knitting on circulars in my bag ready for our journey
That sounds perfect! Happy New Year! 😀 xx
Happy New year, Christine and I hope we all have peace throughout the World in this coming Year. We will have need of it.
I’m still trying to do the cuff down socks but still haven’t got there quite yet but I will. I’ve spent since 1995 knitting toe-up so I’m determined to go cuff down.
HAPPY NEW YEAR to all reading this and to Christine’s family and May we all have a much happier and better year in 2022
Happy New Year! It can be quite a challenge to change the way you knit so if you’ve been knitting toe up for such a long time then cuff down will feel strange! If it helps at all, quite a lot of people knit my patterns (the ones with an actual pattern in the fabric) upside down so that they can incorporate them into toe up socks – it seems to work very well with the Easy Lace Socks in particular! 😀 xx
With you 100% – wishing you and your family a very happy 2022 – and may our lovely group go onwards and upwards sharing many great moments in our knitting endeavours and life generally.
Yes, that would be wonderful, I totally agree with that! Happy New Year to you and yours too 😀 xx
I just want to say a huge thank you for showing me how to properly knit socks and for such a brilliant tutorial on Kitchener stitch – it finally makes sense!! Happy New Year to you and yours and here’s to health, happiness and more socks – they really are addictive 🙂
Oh wow, that’s fabulous to hear, thank you, I’m so glad I could help you! Happy New Year to you too – and definitely to more socks in your future! 😀 xx
Thank you for being so positive and up lifting. So many people seem to be only seeing the negative in everything right now. All the best to you in 2022.
I think we all have to work really hard not to get caught up in the negative spiral and we have to do what works for us. Deliberately focussing on the positive is what helps me and that doesn’t mean that I’m not aware of the worries of the world, just that I choose not to focus on them all the time. I stopped listening to the news quite some time ago now for that reason as I think it can make you feel worse and yet most of it is speculation. I figure that someone will tell me when there’s something important I need to know, but in the meantime, I can think about more positive things instead! 😀 xx
I was afraid that I might be the only person who benefitted from the last two years; I did not see them as the worst of my life. Change is uncomfortable for many of us; we forget that pain and loss are parts of everyday life. Climate change has been a part of this planet since before Noah and the flood. Cultures the world over recorded the event. There was the Ice Age. There are those to rank the death of the dinosaurs among the affects of climate change. The earth culls and cleans itself in every age. Some say the age is 2,500 years long. I wouldn’t know, seeing as how I’m not that old. But I believe we adapt while dodging the Chicken Littles of the world. 🙂 There is always a remnant to live on in a new world. See? The world as we knew it has changed right before our eyes. And we are here to tell the story of all about how our lives were turned upside down . . .
This is the year I will learn to knit heels.
Yes, we have all had to deal collectively with a very big change and with those “usual” sad occasions in life as well, which have seemed worse given the circumstances. None of us will have come out of the last two years unscathed but hopefully we have learnt something and we will continue to do so. This is definitely going to be the year that you learn to knit heels! 😀 xx
Happy New Year, Christine! Thank you for the reminder that sad times are as much a part of the fabric of life as are the best times. Interwoven, as they must be, they help us appreciate life’s joys as we carry on. Wishing you and yours a rich and exciting 2022!
Thank you – and a Happy New Year to you too! xx
I hope this will be the best year ever for your and yours.
Be well.
Thank you – and I hope the same for you! xx
And A Happy New year to you also Christine from Geelong Australia and to all of the other members. May 2022 bring health and happiness and good health.
too all.
Thank you – I’m sending my best New Year wishes to you as well! xx
What a lovely, positive post. Thank you. I’ve been very fortunate in so many ways in 2021, yet I hear myself moaning and whinging about the state of the world in every conversation! So I’m going to make more effort to be happy about all the fantastic things, big and small that are happening in my life . Wishing you a wonderful 2022 xx
Wishing you all the best for 2022 as well! xx
Good luck for 2022. The last 21 days we’ve had less than 2 hours of sun according to the weather people and what we’ve had has been around lunchtime so I’m a bit SAD at present. However yesterday the rising and setting appeared to be static so hopefully spring is on the way. Keep up the good work. 🧶
That’s not much sun at all, is it? Have you got a SAD lamp that might help? Lucy (Attic24) has recently bought one as she’s affected by this time of year too, I must ask her how she’s getting on with it although I’m sure she’ll blog about it soon. I do hope you start to feel better soon xx
Dear Christine, I do hope you have a wonderful year. Sending you and yours a big hug. Love Carol x
Thank you! Very best wishes for 2022 to you and yours too! xx
Thank you for the invitation…happy to board the 2022 and I love going to unknown destinations..so will see where it takes me….love reading your blogs. Take care, stay safe and healthy all the way from South Africa.
That’s brilliant, I hope it’s going to be a great year for us all! Happy New Year to you too, wishing you all the best for 2022! xx
Yes I am going with you .and like you too I have so much to be thankful from 2021, the little things are what we rejoice with , after a life threatening illness , you begin to see life in a different light and rejoice and be thankful for every day and every minute that you have with your love one.
Hoping that this year is what you want it to be .xx
Oh goodness, I am glad to hear that you are OK after your illness and I hope that the outlook continues to be positive for you. Wishing you all the best for the New Year too xx
That just about sums it all up. I’m looking forward to a New Year. It’s the turning of the seasons, the days are getting lighter, bulbs are coming up in the garden and I have just had a knee replacement and am looking forward to getting my mobility back and starting to go for woodland, countryside and beach walks.
Happy New Year, Christine, and wishing you all the best.
It sounds like it’s going to be an excellent year for you – wishing you all the best too! 🙂 xx