It was a dark and stormy night...

Although, to be fair, night is always dark and it isn't especially stormy out there. We have, however, had blizzarding snow all day. Not much of it has actually settled, although the hill above the village is uniformly white. It is odd that it's the South and South East that seem to get all the snow these days, while we in the North get very little. It's a complete turn-around from when I was growing up in the South. Perhaps that's the key: snow avoids me. I ought to hire myself out to places which want to have little snow during the winter.

The first plus-size garment is now with the Editor of Simply Knitting, and she loves it. It took me almost a week to write up the pattern, because I hadn't realised quite how much Christmas had taken out of me. Mental activity is just as draining as physical, and I know this, but somehow it always manages to take me by surprise. That's one of the reasons it's been a while since I blogged; that, and the fact my faithful amanuensis has been on a pointless course [Ed: It's the Gateway to Work course the Job Centre sends you on after you've been signing on for about 6 months. It's a two-week break in job-hunting (during which you still have to fit in job-hunting) to tell you how to hunt for jobs. They tell you how to write a CV, analyse job adverts, and write formal letters - all of which I already know how to do; so it was a complete waste of time for me...]

I've finally had my designs returned from Vogue Knitting and Interweave Knits. Both were accompanied by letters which were full of praise for my work, and asking me to submit more designs, which is a step up from the very first letter I got from VK - "Thanks, but no thanks", in effect - so I'm not too disappointed. Back to the drawing board! [Ed: We have a drawing board?]

And finally, my thought for the day:

I've come to realize that the secret to a happy life is not looking like Barbie or Ken, and suffering through tofu and rice cakes to stay that way.

It's eating chocolate, staying fat, and explaining that you're really a perfect size - but you keep it covered with fat so it doesn't get scratched.

Tigger says, "Diets? We don't need no steenkin' diets!"