On the bright side …

Look at that sky!

Whenever I see a rainbow, I immediately think of my Brightside yarn.  Rainbows were absolutely the inspiration for that yarn, and the idea that there is always something better and brighter on the other side of the darkness.

When I saw this rainbow, and this small Hattie cat (never mind cat on a hot tin roof, this was a cat on a wet flat roof!), I was more concerned about getting her inside before she got too wet because I was on my out with the dog and knew that if she stayed out, she’d get caught in the rain.

The rain didn’t actually materialise – just a few spots – as we walked through the village and out in the fields.  By then, there was a double rainbow and I couldn’t believe that the sky was so dark and yet it had stayed dry.

Until we got to the end of the footpath, at that point where it was no closer to go back than it was to go on, and then the heavens opened.  Not only that, the wind got up and the rain started to come in sideways.  I did think that perhaps the dog and I could sit under a bush until the rain had gone off  (“It’s only a shower, it’ll be fine”) but I had failed to consider that although spring is on its way, the bushes and trees are still bare of leaves and crouching in wet grass under some twigs being pounded by heavy rain was not a good move.

We walked on, the dog and me, dripping water from coats, trousers and tails (the dog’s tail, not mine, and he doesn’t wear trousers either), feeling the water running into my boots from the top so that by the time we were nearly home, I was not only dripping but squelching as well, and that was not an experience I had expected when we set out.

On the bright side (ha!), we have towels in our house and we don’t dissolve in the rain.  Hattie the cat, snoozing on the dry windowsill indoors, watched us out of one sleepy eye as we walked down the path.  She wouldn’t be seen out in the rain like the crazy dog and human!

It’s not been wet all week.  We have had some lovely sunshine and it’s been a joy to be outside.  To be honest, once I had decided that I could either be miserable in the rain or feel the joy of being outside in that, the walk brightened up and it didn’t feel quite so bad, despite the squelchiness.  It’s incredible how we can alter the mood with our minds in a split second, isn’t it?

Thank you so much for all of your comments last week about when you read the blog posts.  It seems that the weekend is generally better and that my emails won’t add to the Friday noise so we can give it a go … as you can see by the time that I posted this, I hadn’t quite got my act together to have it out by Saturday morning, but I’ll aim to get better!

Thank you for your lovely response to my forthcoming sock pattern too … I’m almost there with the pattern for releasing so I can show you what the socks look like and tell you a bit more about them as well.  I always feel a bit nervous about doing that before I’m pretty much ready for them to go into the outside world in case it all goes horribly wrong with the knitting or I end up being delayed and feel that I’m not delivering on promises.  Anyway … here we are …

These socks are called Don’t be Koi and not so small daughter has told me that as soon as they are off the needles and photographed for the pattern, they are going onto her feet and never coming off.  I’ll take that as a compliment!

We designed them together with her forthcoming trip to Japan with the Guides this summer as our inspiration.  The fish are Koi fish which come in all shades from white to gold to red, and the border is red as that is a colour often used in Japan so we wanted to incorporate that too.

The socks themselves are knitted in West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply in Blue Raspberry which actually seems to change colour depending on the light and seemed very appropriate for the “water”!

The pattern will be out next week – I know it’s quite common for designers to release patterns on Fridays, but I’m going to rlease this one on Saturday (8 April) in keeping with our new weekend conversations.  Oh, and I’ll be sure to be organised earlier in the day with it too! 🙂

There are 10 minutes of the morning left in the UK and it’s April Fool’s Day (1 April) so I hope you haven’t been caught out by too much fooling around!  🙂

See you next week! xx