A hat for lunch

Today I did something I have been thinking of doing for a while - I knitted in my lunch break. This may not seem very astounding or difficult and indeed it isn't, but over the past year or so I have become increasingly bad at actually leaving my desk to take a lunch break. I used to be very regimented and come 1pm or whatever I would go out and sit and eat my lunch somewhere. However, this usually involved going to a cafe and buying my lunch and when I decided I would pre-purchase cans of soup from the supermarket and eat them for lunch to try to save some money I stopped having somewhere to go for lunch and started just eating it at my desk (I don't really like hanging out in the staff room at lunchtime, usually all the newspapers have been claimed and are being read and there's nothing to do but silently eat your lunch and then go back to your desk). Nowadays I mostly go across the road and buy a sandwich and then come back to my desk and eat while working or playing on the internet (as you can see, I'm not very good at saving money...I got bored of soup and 2 minute noodles after about 3 months!).

Yesterday, however, it was a beautiful day so I bought a sandwich and went and sat in Civic Square (one of my favourite places in Wellington which is conveniently only about a one minute walk from my work) and read for a while because I didn't have my knitting with me. Today, I came prepared and because it is now horribly rainy, windy, and chilly (Oh hi summer, where are you? Stop making such fleeting visits) I ate soup at my desk and then instead of Civic Square I went over the road to Katipo Cafe and had a hot chocolate and knit a few rows. It was really strange, I sat in the far corner and felt a little bit reluctant and shy to get my knitting out. Like everyone was going to look at me or watch me and say to each other 'Look at that girl, she's knitting, that is so weird'. Even though I knit in public on a Monday night I do so with other people. I'm not the only one. And when I knit on the train back to the Wairarapa when I go home to visit I can't really see anyone around me because we're in little seats all facing one way and usually if anyone sits next to you they avoid eye contact and any communication (public transport, you know how it is).

But really, I was being silly because even if people did look at me strangely and talk about me (and I'm sure they didn't, people have better things to do with their time I'd hope) what's the worst they could do? Come over and say, 'You're weird?'. And that's really not that bad. Although maybe there exists anti-knitting extremists who could get so angry at the sight of me knitting that they might run over and rip my knitting out of my hands and set it alight before my very eyes...but in some ways I think the shock factor and general randomness of that ever occuring would be worth me losing my slaved-over stitches. It'd definitely make the paper. Maybe even the news. It could even spark a 'knitters unite' protest down Lambton Quay complete with chants and a megaphone and that would DEFINITELY be worth it.

I love my imagination sometimes.

Anyway, moral of the story is I think I will start to knit regularly in my lunch break. It will force me to leave my desk for a while (I could knit in the staff room but I just know that for the first few weeks every person who came in would make some kind of comment/want to talk about it and really, I can't be bothered explaining the same thing over and over again, 'It's a hat. They're called circular needles. No, I've never made one before. I only started knitting a few months ago. I made a scarf. Yes, quite a lot of people my age are now knitting, I go to a knitting group on a Monday night at a pub...' and so on and so on ad nauseum. Maybe one day I will but for now I'd prefer to go across the road and do it) and it will hopefully mean I make progress on my projects quicker because at the moment I really only knit on the weekends and on Monday nights. I don't want this hat to take three months.

Anyhow, we shall see how this new regime fares...

(here is a random photo of my scarf and three cherries from my blog header photo shoot because I hate to post such a wordy post with no pictures)

Tonight my little brother is coming to stay for two nights. I am very excited. He will no doubt want to make pancakes, go to the skate park - which is good if the weather is fine because then I can sit and read or knit and he can skate to his heart's content (although the forecast doesn't look promising), and we might go to Te Papa, and we will definitely go to Fantastic Mr. Fox which both he and I (and I think Guy too) are really looking forward to. I bought him the book one year and read it to him and now he can read well enough to read a chapter or two to me before bed when I go home to visit. It's a cool book and it looks like it's going to be a cool movie. Yay!