Thirty, Part Four: April's End and Another FO

So on this, the last day of April - and therefore, the end of my month-long celebration, as it were - let's recap what happened.

The day after my surprise birthday party, Mummy Irish came down with my lovely bean bag chair, and took away the unwanted furniture in my office. All of which eventually led to my new office, which I am loving so much it's untrue.

The same evening, Nick took me to the Barbican to see the London Symphony Orchestra perform music from their over-75 years of performing music for film and television. When the first notes from the horn section at the start of the Superman theme came up, I swear I was tearing up. I love the LSO. As a film geek, I have every right to.

On the 8th, my actual birthday, I was at work. But Nathalie had sneakily got a cake and we had a little sing-song and cake-eating session with the knitting group. Later that evening Nick took me to one of the nicest dinners I've ever had at the poshest place I've been to, L'Autre Pied. It was incredibly delicious and a fantastic treat, probably not to be had again for a very long time.

Exactly a week later, Nick, myself, Diane and her lovely hubby Neil - whose birthday is also in April - met for dinner and then walked across Hyde Park to the Royal Albert Hall, where they were screening Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, in HD.

And the London Philharmonic Orchestra performing the entire soundtrack. Along with the London Voices and the London Oratory School Scola. All three performed in the original recording of the soundtrack.

Yes, I am a geek. But it was glorious and we've already booked for next year when they do THe Two Towers.

Then, most recently, there was Wonderwool. But I'll get to that eventually.

As you can tell by now, Nick has spoiled me silly this year. But I spoiled myself, too, as I was very lucky this year and received birthday money from both my parents.

So I bought yarn:

Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Lightweight in Cobalt Bloom, Downpour, Citrine, Lucky, Rooster Rock, Kaw Kaw and Seal Rock.

And I bought fibre:

Southern Cross Fibre Polwarth in Thorny Devil, Budgie and Byron Bay.

I also bought myself spindles, but they're currently delayed. I'll showcase them when I get them, if I don't get too absorbed in playing with them, that is.

But as with most brithdays, sometimes, you realize that you've changed just enough that you really want something that you normally would never consider as a necessity.

Like say, a new handbag.

My mother would be so proud. Her little girl, finally buying her own handbag. Honestly, when I told her I was going to buy a handbag, I could almost hear the tears of joy.

And meanwhile, on April Fool's Day I cast on a non-club pair of socks. There was a knitalong going on for STR yarn and the pattern they chose was Alice's own Shur'tugal. And I did know someone to whom I owed a pair of socks, and so fate had decreed.

Pattern: Shur'tugal by Alice Yu (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Lightweight in Covelite
Needles: 2.5mm on 80cm cable

This was a lovely, easy pattern to do and everything about it was pleasing: how the pattern flows from the ribbing and drops neatly into the heel flap, and how easy it was to memorize the pattern. The yarn is fantastic to work with and has a lovely feel to it. It's squooshy thanks to all the little cable crosses, but the fabric also feels very firm and strong. I think these socks will last a good long time.

And they're all ready to be wrapped up and gifted.

Thirty, Part Three: Surprises

I am not usually the most suspicious person. Things I get suspicious about are often rather factual or concrete, like perhaps a blip in my accounting, or someone's reasoning behind why they prefer one technique over another, or when someone it ourightly lying and I'm keen enough to perhaps raise an eyebrow and doubt their veracity.

My husband, I do not suspect of much at all.

But on Friday the 3rd, I headed over to Nathalie's with Michelle, where they said we would be having a little party for my birthday because Michelle was going away on holiday on my birthday, so a little Stash party would be in order.

I got there, found that Nick had arrived a little earlier, and then jumped out of my skin when a bunch of people yelled "SURPRISE!" and pelted me with balloons.

And there were Alice, Diane, Ruth and her boy Brian, Kerri, Lucy, Yuvee, and Chantelle.

So between Nick, Chantelle, Michelle and Nathalie, I got my first ever real surprise birthday party.

Of all the people who turned up, it was Chantelle who I least expected to be there, on account of her living and working in Swindon. She'd taken the train down just for the evening. I know I keep telling you why she is awesome, but you can see how I never seem to run out of reasons.

So there was lots of food, lots of talking and catching up, and lots more food. Everyone had brought something, which meant there was plenty.

And I had the best kind of birthday cake.

A birthday cake made up of lots of little Arianna cupcakes!

Nick had ordered the cupcakes in three flavours: red velvet with cream cheese icing, coffe with mocha icing and my favourite, chocolate with raspberry icing. Yum! Just as yum are Nathalie's homemade macaroons, which I utterly love and I was so happy that she'd made some for the party.

L to R: Nathalie, Lucy, Kerri, Chantelle, Ruth and Yuvee.

Alice and Deuce.

And unlike most years, I was overwhelmed by presents. I mean, I normally get a couple from Nick and then my parents send me money so I can buy my own - which I have, but that's for another post - but it was so nice to receive unexpected presents from fantastic people.

AllSpunUp fibre from Nathalie; photogprahy books from Chantelle; a knitted mug from Alice; Fat Face voucher from Michelle and a little notebook from her daughter Natalie; chocolates and Socktopus vouchers from Kerri and Lucy; cashmere (!) and the Majacraft sillyfast whorl from Diane.

Yuvee got me a copy of The Intentional Spinner, by Judith MacKenzie McCuin, and Ruth said she'll get me some yoga classes.

All of which are beyond wonderful, but still nothing compared to having an actual birthday party and having all your friends around having a fantastic time.

Thank you so much, all of you.

Thirty, Part Two: On Missing the Part of You That Used to Be

When I was in uni - and in fact, in the days before I even went to uni to do my Film Studies & English degree - I had a pretty impressive collection of martial arts cinema. Largely Hong Kong kung-fu flicks. Mostly starring Jackie Chan, though I will admit to being rather impartial to Jet Li as well.

I knew a lot of these movies very, very well. Well enough to know how each stunt and each fight worked. That is the degree of my love for martial arts. And I was lucky enough to spend nearly 5 years of my life training with a 34th-generation Shaolin monk. At my best I trained 5 1/2 hours a week, at worst 2 hours a week. I spent hours, days in training, being upside-down, jumping to my own height, sitting in splits, kicking and punching the air like I meant it and learning to fly. These were the best days, when I had to think about every move I made, the lay of each hand, the placing of each foot, the flex of every muscle. I learned to make one movement flow to the next in such a way that it would have, as Sifu would say, meaning.

That was what I liked most about Shaolin kung-fu: that everything had a meaning. That there is intent in every movement you make. Even if all you did was displace air, it meant something in the vastness of this universe. I liked that eventually it grew into a kind of philosophy: when you practice a form and go through the motions, sometimes you have to stop and reexamine where you are before you proceed.

In kung-fu terms, this would be: check your feet, are your stances right, is your back straight, is your fist aligned. If all is well, proceed to the next movement.

In life, it is just about anything. Everything.

The other thing I loved about Shaolin kung-fu was that it brought me that much closer to all my martial arts heroes. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Mark Dacascos, Tony Jaa, Samo Hung, Donnie Yen. I would never, ever, in my lifetime, be anywhere near as good as they are, but I know that I can do some of the moves that they do. And not only that, I know that even now I am faster, stronger and more agile that I ever dared to dream. Back in the old days, I was faster, stronger and even more agile than that. And I made myself into that. It was all me, and the choices I made, and only age is going to take that away from me.

Hell, Sifu could threaten me with his staff all he wanted and I wouldn't be any better if I didn't want to be. But I did.

And I guess that grew into another philosophy. You can do whatever you want, be whatever you want, and if you really want it, you will have it. I wanted to be fast. I wanted to learn to do a butterfly kick. I wanted my forms to be precision-perfect and I accomplished all those things because I wanted to. I practiced, I reflected, I practiced some more.

And what made me happiest was that I did not work that hard to get cheers and admiration from the other students, or to get tougher - let's face it; when you're 4' 11 1/2", no degree of kung-fu skills makes anyone take you seriously - or even to earn Sifu's praise. I worked that hard because I felt like I was defying my own body and the physics that surround it, and the discipline of overcoming those barriers felt good. I felt like I was becoming a better human being, inside and out.

It's not turning thirty that's now stopped me from going back to training. Sifu has recently started a class in Kingston and it's get-toable but it does mean I don't get home until gone 10 at night. A fellow 'brother' monk has a class running in Lewisham near where I live, too, so it's not like I don't have options.

What's stopping me is that I have grown very tired of the ego and machoness that goes with that sort of training. I've grown tired of the notion of being 'hardcore', whatever that might mean. I'm okay with the boys doing their macho act, because I know that between them it's good fun, but participating in that means being one of the guys, and it's hard to do that anymore. Girls putting on the macho hardcore act, though, really leave a bad taste in my mouth, because these are the sorts of people that give female empowerment the bad rep that it has.

Even as I'm writing this I feel incredibly sad; such a big part of my life is now making way for other things that will keep me as fast, strong and agile as I am at the moment, but will never give me back old glories. It's a bit like cutting off one of your own arms, though Nick assured me that in this case, the arm does grow back eventually.

I'm not sure what he means, but I guess he means that it's okay, really. Some things do end without really leaving you, and new things come along to replace them.

So now, at thirty, I'm finally going to start watching all my old Jackie Chan movies again, and hopefully that pang of sadness will not be as strong with each one.

Thirty, Part One: Old For New

I've been thirty years old for 6 days now, and it still feels a little odd. Like I'm supposed to be more, and yet I'm not. It's been a confusing time, because thirty is the sort of age where you're meant to have accomplished things. A good job. Children. Money.

Instead I'm still me, with the few ambitions that I have in this life. One of which was to have a new office, because I felt I was getting a little cramped.

See? Cramped.

It was Mummy Irish's idea to take away the futon - the thing covered in the stripey furry throw - and perhaps, she said, she could get me a bean bag for my birthday, if I liked. She's known me long enough now to know that despite any notion of age I become about three years old as soon as I see a bean bag. I said yes to this plan very quickly.

Eventually she took away the futon, the shelves and the little computer desk with the roll-out bit. And then Nick and I made a trip to Ikea and got a few other things.

Et voilà.

Much bigger, much more spacious. I can actually stretch out on the floor in here now. And we made room for everything.

Storage for books, yarn and fibre. After I put all the books away I kinda went, "Wait, is that all my books? I could've sworn I had more...." Mind you, this is only the crafting and writing books.

The workstation, now able to house everything my old teeny desk did and more. I just want to seek out one of those kneeling chairs to replace the little stool and then it'll be done.

The bean bag chair with giant cushion. This is now my reading and knitting station, which is a very nice thing indeed. I still knit on the sofa, though, with a film or some TV in the background. Lately, it's been a lot of catching up on House.

Things like this make growing up not so bad after all.

Of Cookies and Finished Objects: Om Shanti

It seems like a long time ago since I went on the Cookie A sock design workshop. But everything is still pretty fresh in my mind - or so I'd like to believe - and with the arrival of my copy of her fantastic book Sock Innovations today I am even more geared up to spend some time with a calculator and some graph paper.

There were a lot of socks:

All Cookie's designs. Is she fab or what?

And there were a lot of cupcakes:

Courtesy of the ever-brilliant Arianna.

I'd made orange brekafast muffins as well for the morning, knowing that I can't possibly be the only one who wasn't a morning person. They went down well, I think.

We spent three hours or so in lecture, listening to Cookie talk about elements of sock design, from the cuff right down to the heel. There was a lot about making patterns flow from the rib and making the pattern fit within the sock template. There was stuff about how much cables suck up stitches - therefore 'cable suckage' doesn't mean what you think it means; we love cables, really - and about including little things in your design that make it special.

Then we had lunch, and then we had to try and knit our sock, or do the maths involved, or graph out our pattern while Cookie did one-on-one sessions with each of us. I don't think my head has ever been so full, not since I was back at university absorbing the brilliance of Film Studies on a daily basis. Once I reclaim my weekends from Trailwalker training, I'll be with my head down, making with the magic.

The Amazing Cookie A. I'm sure that's what the 'A' stands for. Amazing.

Meanwhile, there has been knitting.

Pattern: Om Shanti by Alice Yu (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Chameleon Colorworks Evolution in Peppermint Cheer
Needles: 2.75mm on 80cm cable

As ever with me, the first sock took forever. I needed to do slight modifications to the leg portion as I needed more flexiibility, especially since this yarn isn't very stretchy. It's very squishy, though, and the garter stitch heels and toes are certainly very comfy. 

The second sock? Took me five days.

I love them. They are so nice once they're on. My only problem with them is that despite a new cast-off method for the cuff - which is usually my problem; I can never cast off loosely enough - they are still a little snug around the cuff. But at least I learned a new cast off, and it is certainly better than some of the other ones I've tried before. It simply means I need to learn yet another cast off.

And if I don't learn anything new, then what's the point, right?