Getting some sewing done

I've had a bad track record sewing in Spain - after all, the kit I started there in 1983 only got framed this year...

So this time I thought I'd tackle something easy and took an Ehrman kit that I'd picked up at a car boot the other week. It proved ideal - I normally prefer to do something where I can make decisions as I go along, but I am enjoying having a project where you simply sew where the appropriate colour has been painted on the canvas. It's a bit like painting by numbers! The only difficulty is that the painted canvas areas for two of the shades of green are very difficult to tell apart - to my surprise, I found it easier to see the difference in the early evenings, rather than bright sunshine. Since getting home, I've printed out the photo, which is proving a help too.

I did a little every day, while listening to a good book (I especially enjoyed the ubiquitous The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Lindsay Davis's Falco story, A Body in the Bath House) and watching the world go by.

I'm making steady progress - though it's probably hard to see what I've done from these shots, taken on 2 September before I started, and on the 14th.





In fact. I've liked having the painted pattern so much that I bought some acrylic paints from the supermarket yesterday and am going to try designing a canvas myself!

A virtually computerless holiday

I'd intended devoting some attention to this while on holiday in Nerja in Spain, but unlike previous years we couldn't pick up any free wifi on the apartment's balcony. So I'll have to catch up now.

There were plenty of internet cafes - and indeed bars - with cheap or free wifi, but I found that was always eager to switch the laptop off the moment I'd finished work-related tasks, checked my email and made the odd free voip call.

One location was a fairly serious cybercaff packed with computers - we're members there and it is very efficient, but we tended to favour a new and smaller place, run by a friendly Estonian family who have a sideline in selling beautiful Estonian wooden mats etc (several of which have accompanied us back as souvenirs or pressies).




There was also a very friendly cafe, Bagels & Tapas, where we did try working once but it was hard to concentrate while drinking cold beer and eating their excellent chips! Instead this became our preferred place for making phone calls via the laptop - free via VOIP Cheap - though of course you need to spend money in the cafe to access the free wifi to make the call!

In fact I really enjoyed being without constant web/email access - there was so much more time in the days! I'm aware how much time I've spent (wasted) in front of the computer since getting home, surfing, emailing, sorting photos etc. Time sort of zooms by, and sitting down at my desk for a minute turns into an hour. So I'm determined to learn the lesson from Spain - being in front of the computer is fine when I'm working, but I'm going to start setting a kitchen countdown timer to 20 minutes when it's for something more aimless!