Illness is a waste of time!

What a time we've had of it since my last post! We've both had feverish colds, but I decided to branch out and develop a vicious sinus headache for almost 2 days, and now am fighting with tonsilitis that doesn't seem to wish to clear. Hmmm. Well, at least I got back to the water violets yesterday afternoon and evening.


This photo shows progress from the last two stitching sessions. I don't think it's terribly well worked and I'm dismayed at how little I'm enjoying it really.=( I guess I just have so many 'brain' projects going around in my head at the mo that stitching isn't top priority and I feel like I'm being kept away from my reading and study!! I haven't the least umph to get on with the other project(s) either...

I've just applied for a job in the local university library looking after the East Asian Studies collections, which requires reading ability in Chinese/Japanese/Korean. I'll probably not have too much competition for it, unless there's a PhD student in the School who needs funds and/or someone's been telling the Oriental students about it. Still, precedence should go to Brits unless no suitably qualified local can be found. Anyway, we'll see. It's so hard to get a job that I'm by no means holding my breath, but you never know.

Getting sick of stem stitch

I've moved on a bit with the Water Violets and fish design, but still wading through all the copious stem stitch on the underwater fronds! Still plenty to go.... I'm hoping that I can get most of this design done within the next week as it's the main wedding gift from one couple to the other and is also the simpler to work. Slightly depressing that a few commenters liked this design and didn't say my own was nice. Sigh. Still Ms Stevens has considerably more experience and knowledge of nature than me, so I can't expect too much more!!=)

As many will know (and be experiencing themselves), winter has hit here. It's pretty unusual for snow to start in November. In fact, it's only the last 2 years that we've really had old-fashioned winters again in the UK - the last I remember was when I was about 15 in 1986/7. These were taken through our living room window about 5 minutes apart this morning. Snow was actually falling in the first shot, but not enough to show up. Good studying and embroidery weather!! Glad we did the shopping on Monday and that we don't have to go out until tomorrow evening. There is an advantage to not having got work yet!!=)