A couple of warm days to end what was obviously a cool year

We've transitioned to a hybrid work model, where most of us have elected to continue WFH a couple of days a week and the balance of our days at the office. Particulars vary. I was at the office one Monday, and didn't manage to crochet on the way to work, while there, or on the way home.

On the Tuesday, I was at home. During breaks in my day, I was able to direct my spare minutes to finishing the majority of the centres for row 19. Even without their tails being tidied, it gave me a buzz to see them stacked up and waiting. Incentive is a good driver, and end-product visibility is one of the better incentives.

Then I hit a roadblock of the longstanding bad back variety, which could be shorthanded thus: "You used to have this problem, and you used to have that problem, and you still have both of them AND you now have a totally new problem to compound that." Great. You know it's probably not going to turn out well when none of the old remedies quite cuts it AND you can't lie down without making it worse. Now, that's just not fair, is it? I was heartbroken at having to call off a couple of well overdue catch-ups with visiting Melbourne friends, but there wasn't a lot else I could do.

Most saliently, I couldn't crochet much, because I couldn't sit or stand long enough to make sense of anything. Also, heavy-duty drugs can leave you feeling very groggy. So close to the end and, yeah, can't see straight!! Centred or not, batched or not, I'd have to call that an absolute creative brick wall. Fabulous.

However, I've pushed on in bits and pieces here and there since then: a couple of centres during an online lecture where I was standing most of the time, and one or two middles when I could sit for a while. You get there. I got to the end of row 19, eventually. Yes, it's enclosed and all! And the first four - or last four - squares of row 20 have been added. All the row 20 centres are made, and three more squares have middles, although their ends are still trailing. It is tantalisingly close, but I am still unable to sit long enough to do much. Well, you know. When we get there, we'll have arrived.

I hope you've been faring better in every respect.