Trying to work

It feels like I've done pretty much everything but the work I needed to do today. Just as I sat down to transfer notes from the book I've just read onto a Word document, something else came up and I was distracted for an hour or so. And that was the pattern of the day.

Firstly, came the call from Nathan to roam the streets of Highgate taking photographs of his latest knitting projects. We got a little carried away and at one point I had him

sitting on the top of a very tall post box modelling his remarkable double-knit scarf. It struck me how important it is to have fabulous pictures of fabulous things! 

Speaking of which, Nathan is currently washing the little pieces of wool he found on gate posts and dry stone walls around Hadrian's Wall, which he's hoping to spin and turn into wool for another remarkable creation. 

We went to the cafe and I started to work again... Until Fiona arrived. We chatted for hours and then I walked her to Stroud Green via the Parkland Walk before jogging home in my little red shorts, bemoaning the fact that I've become so profoundly unfit that old men were overtaking me. I felt like a giant tomato. Still, Parkland Walk, a former railway line, looked glorious in the mid-summer sun. Enormous, juicy blackberries were already all over the bramble bushes. I've told everyone who'll listen that this is going to be an epic year for blackberries, raspberries and grapes... Not that we get many of them in the UK! 

I came home, started working, and then received a number of emails I had to deal with. And so it went on. I started working, then realised

I had two applications to fill in. A bit more work, then it was time to update my CV (which I've now rather grandly replaced with a biog, cus who cares what I did in 1997?!)

And now, after another five minutes' work, I realise it's blog time. 

Nathan is now "carding" his wool with two giant hair brushes with lethal-looking teeth that would surely rip any but the strongest wool to pieces.  Perhaps this is the point. Apparently before he can spin anything, all the strands have to be going in the same direction. Or something about knitting... It's my birthday on Thursday.