A Devious and Ingenious Plan to Abolish Mondays

Evening one and all!

I just made tea then got so distracted by reading absolute crap on the internet that it has gone cold. I'm now so wedded to the sofa that I'm drinking it cold rather than getting off my butt to go to the next room and microwave it. I'm also waiting for this exciting-looking programme to become available on BBC iPlayer. [Ed - it might be there now, but when I'm going to get to watch it is another matter]

What have I become? Lazy and over-privileged is probably what I've become.

I am sitting on the sofa drinking my cold tea, because I am (quite obviously, now that I come to mention it) not out. For right now, as I type these very letters, it is Monday. Shock Horror. You promised us Tuesday Blog Time, how dare you palm us off with the poor approximation that is a Monday. Tuesdays are for congratulating yourselves on being 40% of the way there*, going to bed early and eating Dominos pizza, right. Monday is a horrible "ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-it's-not-the-weekend-anymore-and-it's-bloody-ages-till-the-next-one" tease of a day, and just not worth it. I'd do away with it, if you asked me. A 6 day week and a 61-week year. 2 weekend days to 4 week days. Heck what would that do to our fragile economics? We'd all burn and die, right? Or get more efficient, be equally as productive and have a better play:work ratio. Either way, vote for me and I'll abolish Mondays.

There are probably ways I could be pro-active and not have Mondays be quite so painful. Niggling at the back of my mind is the idea that our body clocks get used to getting up at alarm O' clock for five days, and then Friday evening comes round and we let ourselves socialise, or antisocialise** as is more often the case, and then we stay up too late, and then we let ourselves have weekend lie-ins and get all out of sync, like a cheap mp3 player. Mondays are effectively a minor case of self-induced jetlag. There's an experiment in there, but I'm not yet committed enough to sacrifice that beautiful Saturday lie-in. Not even to do Science. One day there might be children, or a weekend job, or God knows what else, and Saturday lie-ins could be gone forever.

I tangented. Woops. It's Monday and I'm not out, which is out of the ordinary because Monday is Swimming/Pilates Night, in which I go for a swim, manage about 4 lengths and then spend half an hour in the sauna, while L spends the best part of an hour trying to balance on her nose and wiggle her pinkytoe at the same time, or whatever actually happens at a Pilates class. This is our routine, or what passes for one. Tuesday's place in the routine is Blog Night, but has this week been kidnapped and replaced with a Committee Meeting. A meeting of a Committee I really rather enjoy being on, as it happens (at this point any street cred I (n)ever had leaps out of the window) but a thing which will fill a precious evening. So here I am, blogging on a Monday, when I have not a single drop of original thought juice in my brain.

This photograph is almost totally unrelated.

So I'm making a New Thing. Would you like to see it?
If your answer is "no thanks" or along those lines, then thank you and see you next week.

Here is a Thing.

At the moment it looks a lot like it could be used as a trivet, or a modern twist on a Tam O Shanter. I'm rather tempted to make another to actually keep as a trivet, on account of how there might be new kitchen worktops to get excited about, but this one has a bigger purpose than that.

It's going to be the floor. Or rather, it's going to be a sort of rug/carpet/mat/flooring solution for el Bell Tentio. It's a washable, insulating, cheap, soft, squishy round thing, and as such will exactly serve the purpose I have in mind for it. Which is to grow and grow and grow until it reaches out for maybe a metre and a half to each side. The tent is 4m in diameter, and I'm not that bothered about the absolute edges. This could take some time.

So it starts with some scraps. In this case tiny scraps of polycotton tartan which some of you might recognise.

They get torn in to strips. This is most satisfying. Man, this stuff tears nicely.

These strips get tiny holes in each end and thread together like a daisy chain. A bit like a daisy chain. Like this:

Ta-da, we have yarn.

Then we dig out the biggest crotchet hook we own and we begin.

It's mahoosive.

This is roughly the way but as I've mentioned before I am a crochet illiterate, and therefore mostly reduced to making it up. I know I started with a big old loop and put about 12 stitches in it. It's not exactly 12, most likely either 11 or 13 but I can't work it out and I don't really care.

Then we keep going.

I have a similar project on the go for a big round blankie, using bits of yarn I have either bought off ebay as off-cuts, or begged off friends. It's doing better, having been aided greatly by accompanying me home for the sitting-around marathon that was this Christmas. It's in a bag in another room. I'll take a picture next time it's out.

On Saturday I'll be off for a round of the charity shops, looking for cotton bed sheets to tear up to feed the monster. Charity shop shopping with me is a careful art of good luck and constant refuelling. Much food and coffee is consumed. If any of you would like to join me please shout, it'll be fun.

I wish you a happy rest-of-week. You are 0.4 of the way to Friday clock-off time. Feel free to mark this great milestone by consuming some Christmas chocolate. If you have none I do and will share. Please wish me happy committee-ing. The remainder of this week looks set to include much dancing, pork and apple sausages, and the aforementioned charity shopping, so I shan't write it off just yet. Wish me luck and I will report back on the size of the Thing in a week's time.

Till then!


*45% of the way there if you're a smug 90% person like L

**I am trying to make "antisocialise" happen as a word. It'll be in next year's edition of the OED, at least if I get my way.