Elephant buddies...

Thanks to a day of non stop rain I've finished a second elephant. She distinctly feels like a 'she' because she's a fraction smaller. I've cheated on the tassels this time and looped several strands through the 'rug'. Boy was that quicker and less fiddly! I tried a different colour scheme for the blanket edging and tassels and didn't like it so it was back to safe greys!

In fact it was actually two days of non stop rain. The dogs take themselves off round the fields at the end of the garden on rainy days but it isn't the same as a nice long supervised walk! I made up for it today with a long and leisurely ramble through our favourite meadows and nature reserve. For months I really didn't think my knee would ever recover by itself. It's still problematic and doesn't take very much to knock it into bad shape for a few days. Bizarrely it is still tender to touch, I can't kneel on it, bend down, sit with my feet tucked under my chair, I can't land on it, stairs are painful, slight inclines are painful nevermind hills but... I can walk on the flat and I'm absolutely over the moon about that. If I tread carefully I can do my usual dog walking route albeit with a nagging pain. Never again will I take walking for granted.

Harvey still suffers from a deck slipping injury he acquired some years ago. He bounded outside on an icy day and yelped loudly as he slid across a small portion of decking. It must have done some quite severe muscular damage because he's never been the same since. He thinks in much the same way as I do and scorns 'rest'. After a lengthy tennis ball fetching session he limps home triumphantly with soggy tennis ball in mouth. There's no telling how much pain he's in.

I don't think I'm quite done with crochet elephants yet. I was aiming for two for my craft stall which has meant making three so that the nearly 19 year old in the house who should have grown out of cuddly toys but hasn't, can have one on her bed! Then there's the fourth one that I will make with my niece in mind but that will have to wait as I have a particular colour scheme in mind. Little E visited last weekend which was just fabulous. She really is such a star. It's pretty much the rule that small children are happy, sociable and easily entertained when you take them places and then save their crabby moods for home! I'm sure a certain someone was just like that.

As adorable as Little E is I am pretty happy that my two are older now. They are still demanding but in a different way. J for instance, who has been largely anti social until now (partly due to Xbox and partly due to shyness) has started meeting friends in town or at the football ground two villages away. So just when E is suddenly out and about in her little car and freeing my time up hugely, J is suddenly asking for lifts. Unfortunately it's not always practical cost and location wise to tell him to catch a bus, though he does when he can and always with his passport as ID. It makes me quite cross that they don't believe that he's 15 and therefore a half fare, OK so he's almost 6'3 but surely anyone can tell he's not got the worldly manner of an older boy? For now I'm happy to be the taxi for his new found social life. One new driver at a time is plenty thank you.

I solved the mystery of the second elephant turning out a little bit smaller... both my 4.5mm and 5mm hooks are blue, with only a subtle shade of difference between them. I must have picked up the 4.5mm for the second one. A happy mistake as it turns out because the stitches are a bit tighter.