It all started with the Fair. I went to the Tanana Valley Fair last night and the local pipe band was playing - I'm a sucker for bagpipes. I don't know which I like more the music, the kilts or those darling shoes pipers wear. I became acutely nostalgic for Scotland.
And, fairs mean livestock, sheep and goats and chickens and ducks and sheep and cows and sheep. All the adorable, neatly groomed farm animals feed my fantasies of snug cottages with sheep grazing on green hillsides. I have this dream of raising my own sheep, and using the fleece to create all sorts of lovely knitted, woven and felted goodies. (I don't know that I would enjoy the reality of such an operation as the idea of it - so I think that it will stay a dream for a long long time.)
If the fair weren't enough, I found the most painfully fabulous shop online today. It took me a while to figure out where it was based but as soon as I realize it was Scotland, I spiraled into an unseemly obsession with returning to the land of my ancestors and immersing myself in fiber arts.
Is not this the most delectable hot water bottle cover you could ever imagine?I don't know what I would even do with a hot water bottle let alone a hot water bottle cover, but I want it. AND THEN, I want to know how to make it AND THEN I'll make dozens of lovely variations AND THEN I will live happily ever after...
It's all quite logical really.
(Have I mentioned how obsessed I have become about knitting? weaving? felting? Let it be a cautionary tale to any who dare contemplate moving to Alaska, extreme northern latitudes can drive a person mad.)
All my lusting over woolens has led me to conclude... unfortunately it appears that all rational thought has ceased and all I can think about is SHEEP and WOOLENS and SCOTTISH COTTAGES.
Maggie,
ReplyDeleteI just read this blog, and found myself loving you, and your writing. I realized I really don't know you, in spite of our cousin-ness, yet your blog helps me know you, and I think you should come out to live in Kansas, so we can hang out and laugh and talk and dream together. (Wow that is a long run-on sentence.) Of course it would also be nice if I could move to Scotland with you, if you do move to Scotland, but that might be hard to move all 10 in this family - so I've decided you should move here :) It's insanely uncomfortably hot for a month of the summer, and equally uncomfortable for about a month of the winter, but other than that, it's really a nice place here in the middle of the continent in our hilly, liberal, college town of Lawrence, KS. (I know, those descriptions are not what you think of when you think of Kansas, but that is Lawrence for you.)
so what do you say?
Kristie, you are too sweet. I'm not sure if I'm ready to relocate to Lawrence but I will be passing by soon and would LOVE to visit you and your brood. I'm not likely to move Scotland either but I am moving to DC and am really excited about it - for totally different reasons.
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