Today started off very badly. It began with a ‘phone call from my bank telling me that there had been fraudulent activity on my debit card, so I went through the last month with them and apart from the fact that I only ever seem to buy yarn or food (!), all was well. But still they wanted to cancel my card and reissue me with a new one, leaving me with the £3 I had left in my purse, and this on the one day that Mr B isn’t working from home. Fortunately, that was enough to get the bus to and from my midwife appointment and to buy a pint of milk so I could have a fortifying cup of tea when I got back home. Although then the midwife was half an hour late so I spent a long time waiting in a very boring corridor trying not to fall asleep, which was actually pretty easy as I was sitting on probably the world’s most uncomfortable chair.

But the midwife, when she arrived, was lovely. I know the systems vary even in different parts of the UK, let alone other countries. Here there are a team of community midwives who exclusively cover the homebirthing mothers. No idea how big the team actually is, but I have seen about six different midwives so far, so ideally I should have someone for the birth who I’ve met at least once before. But now I really do want to have this midwife at the birth. She was a lovely tiny grey haired Irish woman who reminded me of my grandma (who isn’t Irish or a midwife but is tiny and has grey hair) who looked like she must have delivered thousands of babies and kept patting my hand reassuringly at random points during the appointment. Sometimes it’s nice to be mothered a bit, even when you’re thirty four years old and also going slightly grey around the edges.

So I felt much better after being poked and prodded and I have lovely lace to share as well.

Though I do say it myself, this shawl is looking good.

Clue 1 of the Aurantium Shawl was released Monday evening, so I spent yesterday in the lace zone and managed to come out of it with my brain intact and not having torn my hair out in frustration.

I did change yarns after all: I think the seasilk is gorgeous, but it wasn’t showing the pattern well and I wanted something floatier. A quick stash raid revealed a skein of Knitwitches Cashmere Laceweight, which is a heavier laceweight at 930m to 100g, knits up beautifully and is so soft I keep stroking it against my thigh cheek. And it’s purple. The yarn was a present from Kai back in 2007 (!), so definitely not the oldest yarn in my stash, but proof I do tend to hoard stuff for a loooooong time…

Now that I’m using a finer yarn, I will probably have to enlarge the shawl to make it a reasonable size. Not talking about a tablecloth-type shawl, but just something a bit bigger than a neckerchief. But having a set portion to do each week will hopefully mean that I don’t get too bogged down with it and it’ll be done before smallest person puts in an appearance.