2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

PollyWollyDoodle

Laura, glad to hear you are feeling better. I do love a bit of Angela Thirkell, my go-to for times of illness or sadness is always Georgette Heyer. 

Pip, I like the original photo better, I think I’d try the garter stitch – if it doesn’t look right then you can frog it, it’s not going to be hours of work to redo it. 

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane, give it a go - when I made the Norigan I could't decide whether to do the sleeves one style or another (yes, would have been sensible to design the whole thing before knitting most of it!!) so I knitted one sleeve in each style, so I could decide which I liked best, then unravel the other and re-knit. Then after a few months I decided I'd made them a fraction over-full at the sleeve-head so I undid all of both of them (knitted from yoke downwards), and re-knitted them both as a better design.... the friend who sent me the Noro yarn is always much amused by my making a cardigan with five sleeves - which I did, I knitted five sleeves in all, to end up with the two I have now  

TwibbleDee

@PipneyJane I’m 5’10”...that might cause some interesting problems!

Hubby’s got the lights off as he’s got a headache again.  I need to get him off to a doctor who doesn’t just tell him he needs to lose weight at some point.  We’re both rather frustrated with the quality of the doctors in our area.  Antibiotics should not be prescribed for thrush.  Injured joints should be x-rayed and the x-rays read properly.  “Lose weight” is not the answer to everything.

TwibbleDee

Hubby is going to be out of town some next week, but back in plenty of time before Christmas.  

Which means...
I'm gonna eat you, little fishy!

Hubby doesn't like fishies, so I eat them while he's gone.  And okra.  And cucumbers.  And squash.  And pork tenderloin.

We're talking about camping at a tiny town in the middle of nowhere for a few days, just to get out of the house.

I think I may end up buying a new sweater coat, if I see one that I like.  Mine has a run on the hood, and it was pretty bad before I saw it.

PipneyJane

TwibbleDee said:

@PipneyJane I’m 5’10”...that might cause some interesting problems!

Hubby’s got the lights off as he’s got a headache again.  I need to get him off to a doctor who doesn’t just tell him he needs to lose weight at some point.  We’re both rather frustrated with the quality of the doctors in our area.  Antibiotics should not be prescribed for thrush.  Injured joints should be x-rayed and the x-rays read properly.  “Lose weight” is not the answer to everything.

Err, yes, I’m 5’4”, so not ideal.  Perhaps you should partner with @Laura_Elsewhere; she is taller than me.

Does your husband suffer from migraines, @TwibbleDee?  Or has he never had a diagnosis?  Headaches can be caused by a lot of things, including knots in your neck and poorly fitted glasses. (My glasses have stretched due to mask wearing and have caused me headaches.  Have his?) 

In today’s news, London is back in Lockdown, only it is now called “Tier 4”.  We’re still trying to figure out how Christmas will work.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

I'm 5'8" if I stretch, with a 31" inside leg, so we might make a great team, @TwibbleDee - we can win that three-legged race no problem! 

We're still in just "high risk" which weirdly now has two levels above it... 

I can't help it - I just keep looking at New Zealand and really really wishing that we could do that idea that went round on social media - declare war on NZ, and then immediately surrender, thus gaining Jacinda Ardern as our leader... 

We've got our Xmas lights up now, all across the sitting room, up and down the corridor, all round the bedroom...! Hurrah! The kitchen has no window, relying on a huge arch-hole above the worktop on one side into the sitting-room, whence this pic  
Red, blue, pink, purple, blue, pale-pink... I wish they made decent green fairy-lights too!

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

I'm 5'8" if I stretch, with a 31" inside leg, so we might make a great team, @TwibbleDee - we can win that three-legged race no problem! 

We're still in just "high risk" which weirdly now has two levels above it... 

I can't help it - I just keep looking at New Zealand and really really wishing that we could do that idea that went round on social media - declare war on NZ, and then immediately surrender, thus gaining Jacinda Ardern as our leader... 

We've got our Xmas lights up now, all across the sitting room, up and down the corridor, all round the bedroom...! Hurrah! The kitchen has no window, relying on a huge arch-hole above the worktop on one side into the sitting-room, whence this pic  
Red, blue, pink, purple, blue, pale-pink... I wish they made decent green fairy-lights too!

Those lights look lovely, l@Laura_Elsewhere . 

As for feeling wishful for New Zealand... I agree.  I like Jacinta Aherne.  She’s a decent person.  I’m currently watching Brokenwood and feeling mildly homesick.  Why I am homesick for the “seventh state” is beyond me.  I’ve only spent 2 weeks there.  In our sibling rivalry, I am from the “West Island”, but it’s close enough to home to make me homesick.  (I still blame New South Wales for p*ssing off New Zealand in the 1890’s, during the federation conferences.)

- PIp

TwibbleDee

PipneyJane said:

Err, yes, I’m 5’4”, so not ideal.  Perhaps you should partner with @Laura_Elsewhere; she is taller than me.

Does your husband suffer from migraines, @TwibbleDee?  Or has he never had a diagnosis?  Headaches can be caused by a lot of things, including knots in your neck and poorly fitted glasses. (My glasses have stretched due to mask wearing and have caused me headaches.  Have his?) 

In today’s news, London is back in Lockdown, only it is now called “Tier 4”.  We’re still trying to figure out how Christmas will work.

- Pip

He's never had a proper diagnosis, but there is a distinct difference between a regular headache and these.  He is legally blind without his glasses, and he's definitely broken enough things that it could be structural.  I need to ask around and see if I can find a doctor who will actually talk to him.

So, what does lockdown mean there?  The worst lockdowns here basically reduced the capacity in stores and shut down the medical offices and in-restaurant dining.  So much here is considered necessity for oil field.

TwibbleDee

Laura_Elsewhere said:

I'm 5'8" if I stretch, with a 31" inside leg, so we might make a great team, @TwibbleDee - we can win that three-legged race no problem! 

We're still in just "high risk" which weirdly now has two levels above it... 

I can't help it - I just keep looking at New Zealand and really really wishing that we could do that idea that went round on social media - declare war on NZ, and then immediately surrender, thus gaining Jacinda Ardern as our leader... 

We've got our Xmas lights up now, all across the sitting room, up and down the corridor, all round the bedroom...! Hurrah! The kitchen has no window, relying on a huge arch-hole above the worktop on one side into the sitting-room, whence this pic  
Red, blue, pink, purple, blue, pale-pink... I wish they made decent green fairy-lights too!

Woohoo!  I have a buddy!

I've actually come up with a new fitness goal for 2020 rather than just being able to move.  You see the peak across the way in this picture?  That's Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas.  It's only a few hours away, and my goal for next year is going to be to get my butt (and the rest of me!) up to the top.

I love the fairy lights - hubby pulled all of ours from the camper and used the on the porch.  It's fabulous and nice and light up.

Laura_Elsewhere

@TwibbleDee, we have different levels of lockdown in the UK, but roughly speaking...

Wales and Scotland, the SE of England and London, and some other areas, are all in the highest level of alert, so only essential shops, ie food shops, medical pharmacies, that kind of thing, are allowed to be open, and the police can and do shut down anyone trying it on. All pubs, bars, cafes, restaurants, hairdressers, salons, gyms, etc., and everything else have to close. People are not allowed to travel in or out of the area. A new Stay At Home order has been issued for the areas in England meaning you can only go out for exercise, work if you cannot work from home/ are an essential key worker, education or medical treatment; otherwise, go home and if you refuse it's a huge fine and if you do it repeatedly, a criminal conviction. 
Prior to this new, tighter tier being introduced there were idiots who threw parties with 30 people - most of those individuals now have a criminal conviction and a £10,000 fine to pay. 

It's less tight than France has been for most of the year - for months at a time, my friend there could only leave her apartment with a written permission slip from the authorities stating that she is an essential key worker. 

It does get the case-rate down, though - and the hospitals are already struggling, and numbers increasing "alarmingly", and hospitalisations are a few weeks behind the case-numbers, so they are looking at last week's total of new cases, and translating that into the hospitals having to turn people away by mid-January if the rate keeps increasing as it currently is. So to slow that rate and let the hospitals keep functioning, they impose lockdown. 

Everyone I know in both Scotland and Wales is glad of their tighter restrictions, even the ones with struggling businesses, because they can see how muddley it's been in England and how the rates have shot up as a result... 

My parents only leave their home once a month, to take the car for a 15-minute drive to a local hill with a long, lonely road where they can park, walk half a mile or so along the road, easily able to see any other pedestrians (there never are any!), and back to the car and home. Dad walks to the postbox to post letters, but goes at very quiet times and goes to the quietest postbox, away from the busier streets, often seeing nobody. They have a small garden and have really really relied on it this year, for exercise, for pleasure, for fresh air, and for the birds on the feeder and in the birdbath! They did have Younger Niece visit sometimes and they would sit on opposite sides of the garden and chat but that had to stop a few weeks ago when things tightened up a bit there.