Today was supposed to be my Gym day with the BEATS exercise programme but I got up late and tired and had no motivation at all. I am sorry to any gym nuts who might be reading my blog and are addicts but I would rather do some thrilling exercise than pedalling a bike looking at a wall. I could choose the bike with the view of 4 TV screens all with different channels and the sound turned down but I keep thinking any moment a pianist will come in and play as in the silent movies. Now that could be marginally more exciting! I look around and see the concentration on the faces of the others and then realise they are mostly plugged into IPods but as an IPod isn't high on my wish list I am one of the outcasts.
My idea of exercise is something that involves fun. I used to love my belly dancing until my back forced me to give that up. Horizontal dancing would be nice if I could find the right partner. I do get offers of the sexual kind but as the guys seem to think that because I have been without a partner for a long time that I am therefore gagging for it and they are doing me an enormous favour by asking. I am old fashioned. I want a bit of romance guys, someone who will ask me out for a drive, a picnic (well when it's warmer), the theatre etc. What I don't want is the furtive offers from other women's husbands for a roll in the hay when she isn't looking! As my father used to say "You don't look at the mantlepiece when you are poking the fire". I have no illusions that it is my beauty (ha ha) that draws them to me like moths to a flame it is more the fact they perceive me as being available at any time and they think they don't even have to pay for a room as I live alone! I am not flattered by this attention. I said to one guy "Please don't insult me by asking me and he actually did look shamefaced and admitted that was all he wanted from me - no relationship - nothing - just straight sex"
There must be some women who accept this kind of attention. I used to have a friend who had lots of different guys all the time and thought like a man. She called me a prude but I don't think I am. I just value myself a lot higher than that. I did try saying yes for a while thinking these encounters would lead to dating etc but I got very disillusioned. I even tried the Internet dating and got a wide selection of other women's husbands on that offering to come around to my house on first contact. One actually said "Why put an advert on a dating site if you don't want casual sex?" Needless to say I cancelled my subscription to that shortly afterwards.
Whoa - back to the crocheting topic that I am supposed to be writing about on here. I started another shawl, different pattern, last night. This one is crocheted from the narrow part upwards. I found it in a 1974 crochet/knit magazine (60p) when crocheting patterns were written simply and had no charts and no squiggly diagrams. Most of all, Bliss oh bliss, UK CROCHET TERMS. Yeah! Plus the added bonus of the fact it is a UK pattern so therefore no Mistakes or Typos. Hands up all the crafters out there who are sick of all the mistakes in the modern patterns. I wonder who proof reads these US crochet books I pay £12 plus for? Obviously no one who crochets that's for sure. The photos show my WIP, the finished shawl, and the front cover of the magazine.
Today I am going to try my hand at a pair of crocheted fingerless mitts as I gave up completely on the pair in the Stitch n Bitch Happy Hooker book. I am sure there must be a way of making a pattern with less ambiguous rows and a better fit. I could have crocheted 2 pairs in the time it took me to read and then re- read every pattern row. My poor yarn was almost threadbare with all the frogging I did even then. Other people have crocheted them with no trouble, I think I have trouble with her style of writing crochet patterns out plus having to always convert every line to UK terminology is annoying.
Oh by the way any guys reading this I have lost touch with my nympho friend so am unable to supply a phone number for her!
