Picking up where I left off

Back from my Lake District holiday and I’d love to say that I was feeling refreshed - but really the hot weather has rather beaten that out of me. As a family we are decidedly cold-weather walkers and we all found the novelty of hill walking in hot weather to be a bit of a challenge.

Who knew human beings needed quite so much water? Thankfully we were possessed of two strapping young men who were more than capable of carrying the weight - and they took up the load in more ways than one when we were out on the fells.

And as for my digital detox - how did I fare?

I know you are curious. If I was being honest I would have to describe it as a mixed bag. I deleted Instagram and Threads off my phone successfully and they stayed off for the duration. As these are my two ‘bottomless scroll’ apps this made a real difference to my screen time.

I had planned to take my laptop in case the urge to write struck while I was away but my subconscious brain took the reins on this one - and I only remembered about it when I was halfway up the A1 🤣

On the other hand my mother was away on a solo holiday and so I felt I had to keep my phone on in case she wanted a WhatsApp chat - or so she could show me her Facebook photos. I didn’t quite manage to turn my phone off and keep it off, but I did make a marked dent in my screen time and my casual scrolling so I’ll take that as a win.

I didn’t manage much knitting, rather disappointingly but I made a lot of notes for future patterns - and I’ll be having a bit of a cast-on fest just as soon as the weather cools down a bit.

🔥 Climate crisis

I normally try to keep things light here but as wildfires currently range across Europe - and even here in the UK - it feels impossible to ignore the continued impact of weather pattern changes. It is easy to feel helpless in the face of such devastation but this brilliant article on hyperlocality by Melissa Harrison really saved my sanity this week.

Don't fail to do something just because you can't do everything — Richard Stearns

There are the big things - campaigning against data centres for example or fighting to reduce fire risk* - but even just tiny things like saving your waste kitchen water for a local tree, or leaving our food/water for wildlife can make a big impact.

It’s worth remembering that news media will always default to the scare stories and bad news - they rarely linger as long on those making a positive impact. But they are out there and we can all follow their example by doing little bits where we can. It beats weeping into a cushion or going shopping to drown our sorrows in consumerism, after all.

*If you are in the UK and haven’t already please consider signing this petition - to try and force the government to ban disposable BBQs SIGN HERE

What’s making me smile this week

☀️ Our garden survived us being away thanks to my husband’s clever drip feeding irrigation system (set on a timer) and we have come back to find actual things to harvest - courgettes, tomatoes and even the first strawberries. Definitely a cause for celebration.

☀️ I caught up on the June block for my 2026 Temperature Blanket. The good thing about each mitered square only taking 10 minutes is that it is easy to catch up if you accidentally miss a day (or week).

There’s a tutorial here on how to make a mitered square if you have always fancied having a go.

The first six months

☀️ Halfway through a blanket is probably not the time to experiment but I’ve been having fun with this neater way to work an ssk.

☀️ Watching Dune - the film - with my eldest son. I read the book when I was his age, maybe a little younger and back when I was an avid sci-fi fan. Having suffered through the terrible David Bowie version of the film I was unprepared for just how good the recent remake starring Timothee Chalamet is. So of course, I have had to rebuy the books for my collection - although my son will probably pinch them when he goes back to Uni.

☀️ New glasses! I’ve been aware that I needed a new prescription for a while and I finally got around to getting new glasses last week. And my goodness - they have made such a difference to my reading and my knitting. Much less peering and squinting has been going on and I can finally see my stitches clearly again without turning the super bright light on.

If you are feeling too warm to knit you might like to restock your queue instead - and so I have a 20% flash sale for the next few days - with a discount across all of my patterns on my website and on Ravelry. Just use the code SUMMER26