How time flies when you aren’t having any fun at all in any way, shape or form…
I came here to talk about my 3rd Tour de Fleece and 1st John Arbon Textiles Virtual Open Mill Weekend, which both start today, only to discover that my last post was from my 1st TdF and its aftermath. And I am no further forward with my plans…
I do have more wheels! A chair wheel in need of TLC, a brand-new Kromski Fantasia, and an EEW Fold which hasn’t arrived yet – it’s shipping in March 2026, all proceeding to plan. I’ve also acquired an Ashford Loom at WonderWool, which is still in its box. I’ll probably do individual posts on these. Something to spur me on to write here.
The Cat Distribution System initially tried to overwhelm me, then decided I was an unfit cat-mom. As of my last post, I had two cats – my little old lady tabby Deasa, and new kitten Blimey. Later, they were joined by Lasair, a vicious feral who I think must be Blimey’s dad, and NosferCatu, a tuxedo kitten with 2 thin white stripes under his nose which looked like Nosferatu the vampire’s teeth. Truly, I was blessed.
Then, Blimey did not return for his evening feed one day. I went looking for him, and found him curled up in a barn, dead. No sign of injury or illness. He just went for a catnap and never woke up.
I was barely over that when Nos disappeared. I advertised on the usual Facebook community sites, to no avail. Then, almost 3 months later, a local animal sanctuary posted a photo of “Mack”, who was about to go to his “furever home”. It was Nos, almost full-grown. I contacted them immediately, with photos of Nos, asking if it was possible that their local cat-catcher (my neighbour) had brought him in. They replied quickly, saying that he had been captured in different town nearly 30 miles away. I was crushed. I wouldn’t have demanded him back or interfered with his adoption, but it would have been a comfort to know he was safe and loved. Then, my sister pointed out how friendly Nos was, how adventurous, curious, and utterly without fear of strangers he was: was it possible that he’d jumped into one of the many delivery vans that came to the house, and only escaped in the other town? Or could he have approached and been taken by a stranger, only to escape or be abandoned by them? I’m now convinced that Mack is Nos, and hope he’s happy in his new home. But I miss him so much…
They say that troubles come in 3s. One day, Deasa came home from checking on the neighbour’s sheep, crying to be let in. She normally jumps through an open window, so this was strange. When I picked her up, she screamed. Both her back feet were bloody, and looked like they were missing chunks. The vet – a girl I was at school with – said several of her toes were gone, and it looked like she might have gnawed through some of them. She thought Deasa might have been caught in a mink trap, and had freed herself to come back to me. She would have had to have both paws amputated, followed by months of physiotherapy, with no guarantee she’d ever walk again. So I said goodbye to my little old lady, howling like a baby. It was the first time in 20 years that I shed tears – I actually thought I’d lost the ability, possibly because of some of the meds I take (it’s a side effect of several). I had her cremated, and plan to sprinkle her ashes near the sheep that so fascinated her. When I can let her go…
So now, I only have the grouchy feral, Lasair. He comes and goes, but is far from the bundle of growls and claws that accidentally got stuck in the Mighty Offspring’s bedroom. He is now a big soft puss who tangles my feet, and pretends to be a widdle kitty who just wants scritches and noms, complete with a fake little squeaky miaow that he can’t quite manage with his natural basso profundo voicebox. He even rolls over for belly scratches, but when I oblige he reverts to the Mighty Hunter and tries to murder my hand. He’ll never sleep next to me like Deasa, sit on my shoulder like Blimey, or pat my face to wake me like Nos, but he does sit in my lap to be brushed, and he allows me to knit or spin without attacking my wool, so there’s that…
Somewhere in the middle of all that, family shit happened. The Mighty Offspring had made the decision to do his A Levels in Belfast, switching the custody from weeks with me, weekends with his dad to weeks with his dad and weekends with me. I was not happy with this, for several reasons.
First and foremost, his school had all his supports in place – a personal Teaching Assistant, a laptop to do his school work on, accommodations for his examinations, etc., etc. The Further Education college he planned to do his A Levels at would have none of these, and probably would only have them in place just in time for his his A2 finals (as it happens, I was right – the only thing they managed was to arrange for him to do his exams on a laptop). But he particularly wanted to go there because they offered a psychology A Level, which he couldn’t do at school. Unfortunately, not enough people signed up for psych to run the course, so he ended up taking 3 courses that he could have done here…
Secondly, I was uneasy about him living the bulk of his time with his father. His father is basically a “kept man”: he lives with – and off – his girlfriend, who is fairly well off. However, I’ve often had the impression that she … was not entirely happy to have the MO as part of the package. This impression increased when he was trapped in Belfast during the first lockdown, before the government allowed children in shared custody arrangements to travel between parents. From what MO told me, she basically ignored him, apart from when he did something “wrong” in her eyes, like put dishes away in the wrong cupboard, when she screamed at him. Tensions continued to rise when he was studying up in Belfast – not helped by a long period of hospitalisation for his dad, when they were on their own in the house. MO was also gaining friends in Belfast, and going out with them at weekends instead of coming to me, which probably didn’t help.
Well, his AS Level results were awful – of course, with no support. So he repeated the year, switching from Economics to Business Studies. Then, 5 weeks before his AS exams, his dad, just out of hospital and at his girlfriend’s instigation, told him to move out in 4 weeks. Then, kicked him out, despite him not having found anywhere to live.
Yes, my former husband made his only (acknowledged) child – autistic, learning disabled and VERY young for his age – homeless.
I cannot express how this makes me feel. I grew up in a household and family that included foster children – both my grandmother’s and my father’s. Previously fostered children, now adults, were regular visitors. And when the state began taking more responsibility for orphans and there was no longer any great need for foster carers, our home became the go-to place for local children who were on the outs with their own parents. My sister-in-law was one of those kids, along with her brother. We never turned anyone away. And no matter how much I or my siblings argued with our parents, or how much we disappointed them, even hated them at times, we always knew that we would NEVER be one of those kids.
And that cunt threw my baby on the streets.
Not giving me a heads-up so I could collect him and bring him home, not asking his huge family all over Belfast to take him in in the short term – nothing. He. Put. Him. Out.
I have never wished a long, painful death on anyone in my life, till now. I have never wanted to deliver that long, painful death with my own hands. I have never hated anyone like this. Reader, I fucking married that bastard. LOVED him. Even when he chose alcohol over us, I tried to keep him in my life for our son’s sake, tried to keep things friendly. I thought, bar the alcoholism, that we were on the same page, had the same basic values…
So I did not know when exactly he had to be out, as neither would pick up the phone or respond to messages (I think his dad went on holiday after kicking him out, and MO might have been scared to talk or had no phone credit/power). Finally his dad responded that he was couch-surfing with friends, maybe in Portadown. I tried the police, but they weren’t interested as MO was over 18. An ex-cop friend helped with some contacts. I scoured social media, where I could at least see that he’d logged in every day or so. I contacted his friends, though none knew where he was…
Three months.
Eventually, he responded to say he’d found a room – an over-priced room – not far from where he was living with his dad. Of course, he hadn’t sat his exams – or contacted the college to explain – and had no plans to return to college. He was looking for work, with no success. I wanted to get in the car, drive up and take him home. Try to figure out where he could go from that. But he’s an adult, and he wants his freedom. I messed up at his age, and there’s no way I’d have wanted my parents to step in and try to fix things for me, so… Messing up was one of the best things that happened to me – I got slapped in the face by some Real Life, and learned from it. How could I deny MO the same experience?
And it’s kind-of worked out. He hasn’t found a job, or voluntary work, but he’s getting by. He’s come to the realisation that he should have stayed in school after his GCSEs, and considered moving home. But he has friends, and he’s happy. He is thinking of getting his own place nearer the city centre, which would make finding a job easier, and maybe doing an Access course for university. Or, just working.
But: TdF.
I have filled half a bobbin on my EEW, Icarus, with a Shetland/bio-nylon blend which is destined for sock knitting, while watching the 1st day of the John Arbon Virtual Open Weekend. This is going to be a heads-down, plough-through spin of 500g. Then, for funzies, I have:
- a 1/3-1/6-1/9 fractal spin (Tall Hedge Fibres, “Mulberry” [acid green and deep wine], 111g, 100% 21mic Merino) set up and ready to go on Blaise, my Herring wheel, and
- a 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 fractal spin (Mill House Designs, Colourway 6 [pastel pink and pastel green] , 100g, 70% Merino 30% Tencel) on my brand spanking new Kromski Fantasia which is still nameless, though I’m leaning towards calling it Tango.
Both of those will probably be woven into shawls. More of that, ah, er, sometime.
And I have completely lost my mind and decided to learn NEEDLELACE! Yes, the stuff made with those footery wee sewing needles! At my age, and with my eyesight! A community worker I know asked if I could do lace making, and I mentioned the lace crochet I could do. It turns out she has some contacts with a lacemaking club over the other side of the lough who make Inishmacsaint lace. Now, fromresearching my family tree, I know I have some ancestors from Inishmacsaint parish, and I’d heard of Inishmacsaint lace, but I hadn’t put the two facts together AND added the idea that there would STILL be lacemakers in the area. I know, I know, I’m getting old. But the CW told be there’s only a handful of these ladies, and they’re all well up in their years with no younger person interested in keeping the skill alive. Someone is writing a history of the lace, but not learning how to DO it, so she (the CW) is looking for anyone interested. My full-throated YES interrupted her offer to introduce me! However, this happened only a few weeks ago, and the group doesn’t meet during the summer…
In the meantime, I’ve been tracking down everything I can about Inishmacsaint lace – which is, pretty much nothing. I found some old letters about the lace school in Inishmacsaint, a list of students, and some invoices in the Enniskillen Museum, a blank placeholder web page on a site about Irish laces, and a small guidebook on the history of lacemaking in Ireland with a whole paragraph on the history of Inishmacsaint lace school. A few other books mention Inishmacsaint lace in passing – literally, a sentence acknowledging its existence, and nothing more. There are a few photographs on Pinterest from the now-closed Sheelin Lace Museum, none of which are clear enough to get any idea of what’s involved. There’s nothing on Youtube or in the Antique Pattern Library. It’s like Greek Fire – mentions all over the place, but no details, no recipes, and very little about what it even does.
One of the things I did discover is that it’s based on Venetian Gros Point, so that’s the direction I’m taking until the group starts up again in the autumn. I’ve found a basic how-to book, and I’m doing some practice pieces in hopes it’ll be relevant.
Still hate those footery wee needles…
Soz about the long whine. I’m just howling into the void.
thornmaiden.com 