I'm Back

I know- I know – you all thought I’d got tired of all this upholstery tricksterishness and moved right on to some other thing but no - I’m back. 

So - happy new year to you all - my loyal readers - and I am confident that this is going to be a better year for us all. Seems pretty good so far.

The reason why I haven’t posted anything for so long is because I have not done any upholstery for  so long – almost ten months in fact - and the reason for that is that I broke my finger in February and have spent the past ten months waiting for it to heal. It is a salutatory story and to all the women who walk around with fistfuls of diamonds – forget it- the thing that those rings are good for is acting like a block when you fall over and put pressure on your finger, and then your finger snaps like a twig. My ring finger on my left hand broke in half. Forget the rings girls, they are dangerous and as I’m left handed, breaking my finger turned out to be a catastrophic handicap (well a bit catastrophic- maybe I exaggerate a little! )

By the time I managed to drag myself to A+E with a finger ballooning alarmingly and with the rings now constricting the swelling, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. Luckily, my darling daughter took charge and drove me to the hospital, interacted with everyone who needed to be interacted with, got me coffee and water and magazines and generally acted like my mother – well actually acted like her mother – me on a better day. And I acted like her- whining and grizzling and being really scared.

The cutting off of the rings pantomime was very spooky. I tried to avoid it at first, after all this is my wedding ring they are cutting off and my husband is dead. But a stern word about the choice between a ring or a finger shut me up and I braced for it. The machine thingy that they use has a little battery and the cutting off exercise promised to be excruciatingly painful and it was. More so because every time the machine was near me it would not work. It worked over by the bench, it worked by the door, it worked when the impatient doctor grabbed it off the puzzled nurse and switched it on, but it didn’t work near me. I think Brian was working a bit of sabotage. The final up-shot was they cut the rings off by hand- pain!!! Holy hell – there are no words for it.  

So then I go home for three months and it heals totally crooked, crossed and weird. Nothing for it but an operation to fix it and we start the whole thing all over again. Now I still have a crossed weird finger- just a little less so but I’m not game to do that operation thing again –it was an ordeal I don’t feel like repeating and I don’t understand how anyone can have plastic surgery?? I just can’t get how you put yourself through that to wear a bigger bra or something.

I’m learning to live with the weird, weak and strangely fat-knuckled finger – but one thing is for sure, my wedding ring wearing days are well and truly over. But I can do some upholstery again at last so now that’s what I am going to do and keep trying to figure out the widow’s life. They are strange days now – better mostly but when its worse- it’s really worse. Our third Xmas without Brian was better- kind of like a normal Xmas but with a great big bit missing, I guess with the heart missing. We are learning to work around that hole but it doesn’t mean we like it.

I’ve got some good chairs to upholster – and some good fabric to do it in too- so watch this space.

In the meantime, I am having a little stall in the Foxton Beach Summer Market which is being held the second Saturday of the month over the summer – I’ve made a few cushions and will team up with Gill at Riverhouse who makes some very beautiful homewares, candles and infusions

 It will be fun, so come up to Foxta del Sol on 14^th January and visit. I will look forward to seeing you there. L