Distracted

I have, at long last, got round to making a header for the blog. It's not quite what I had envisaged because it's the wrong shape, really, but otherwise I'm quite pleased with it. The picture shows the lovely Morag on the left, with her boxwood mounts and handy pegs for blocking off drones. On the right is the, frankly bling-ier Monkey, with his lovely hand engraved silver mounts, his D chanter, on which you can see the E key. You can also just about see the very handy drones switch down on the stock. A handsome pair, I think you'll agree.

The rest of the picture includes some of my favourite CDs, some music, and some hints of my various distractions - a cookery book, a baking book and utensils, general reading, and some allotment bits and a small knitting project I've just begun on.

 Looking at my labels word cloud I see that more posts are tagged with "distractions" than anything else, so I thought they deserved a post of their own. (I'm also surprised, and glad, to see that I've tagged more posts as "progress" than "whinge".)

Distractions are anything that stop me playing pipes, so are basically also known as "life". My biggest, and least welcome, distraction, is work. It's a double edged sword. If I didn't have to work I would have more time to do all the things I want to do. If I didn't go to work I wouldn't have the money for pipes, seeds, plants, yarn, fabric...

Outside work I have a home to run. This involves cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing and so on. None of which gets done particularly well or particularly often (with the exception of cooking), but there's still rather a lot of it.

I also have not really essential household chores that I choose to do, and love. This covers making all my own bread, baking cakes and biscuits, making chutney and jam.

The allotment is seasonal and there are several months in the year when I don't visit at all, but it still takes up lots of thinking time. The plot exists in its own time zone. I can't think why else it is that when I pop down for 20 minutes I get back to find I've been gone for well over an hour...

Knitting is a constant for me. I always have something on the go, even if it is only a pair of socks. Sewing - dressmaking, quilting and needlepoint - I do on more of a faddy basis as and when the urge takes me. I've done a lot of needlepoint over the last month

I follow tennis intermittently. Well, I say tennis, it's really Andy Murray. I do also listen to The Archers, although generally only in the winter and usually while  am cooking, so it doesn't eat up any extra time in itself.

Oh, and I read. A lot. All sort of books, many of them, at the moment, recommendations from The Captive Reader. I also follow blogs that cover knitting, and quilting, and piping... Not to mention keeping this blog up to date.

Throw in a few crosswords, some sessions, a rather limited social life, time with the fan and a paltry seven hours sleep a night and it's a wonder I ever find time to play pipes at all.