The life of a lady who naps

I am rapidly discovering that just because I'm not going to work every day life is not slowing down to that pleasant drift-along pace so imagined and envied by those of us on the 8.24 train.  I'm on to day 4 of my maternity leave and although I have made significant and visible progress into mission 'rescue the house from four weekends in a row of travelling and neglect', I have not yet achieved that happy equilibrium in which my chores can be accomplished in a mere 45 minutes or so every morning, leaving the rest of the day free for knitting, swimming and cooing over baby clothes.

I have however done the washing up every morning and made a home cooked meal every night.  Given that my mother reads this blog it's perhaps not a good idea to dwell too heavily on the reasons why I might be so very proud of that; believe me when I say that I am!

If I'm honest, I know that this is the eye of the storm; working, and particularly commuting, while heavily pregnant was hard work and very tiring and with H trying to stack up as many brownie points as possible to tide him over his paternity leave, neither of us had been in any fit state to do more than the bare minimum when we got home, and when this little bear comes along we'll be back to that bare minimum, plus the addition of a few pre-cooked meals in the freezer (note to self: eat ice-cream out of freezer to make room for nutritious home cooked food)

At our antenatal class the other day we looked at a His Day vs Her Day scenario in which New Dad rushes out to work and has a horrid stressful day and New Mum spends the day with a baby that won't settle until 5 minutes before New Dad walks through the door.  As far as he can see, the house is a tip, the baby is asleep and New Mum is sat on the sofa with a glass of wine and a piece of cake.  The exercise was obviously in communication, but H and I discovered that we'd both independently decided that as long as I poured him a glass of wine and had left him a slice of cake he probably wouldn't notice the state of the house. Maybe I should put some cake in the freezer too ...!

This is not to say of course that I haven't been taking things easy, just that I'd forgotten how great that commute was for knitting time!  However, thanks to yesterday afternoon spent watching Poirot, snoozing and knitting, and a wonderful couple of hours spent with the ladies of Kenilworth Knit and Knatter this morning, I have actually finished something.  Well technically it's half a something:



A first Francie sock by Bowerbird Knits from some lovely red sock yarn that I found in the stash.  Incidentally, why is it always the red yarn that loses its label.  I remember that I bought this at Wonderwool and I know it's a 75/25 wool/nylon mix but beyond that - no idea at all.  Maybe there are very tiny Borrowers living near my yarn stash who like the colour names of the red yarn and are borrowing them as pieces of art work.  More to the point, maybe that's what I should do with some of the pretty yarn labels that I don't want to throw away; make a pinboard collage - or would that just give the game away as to the extent of the stash?