Happy Equinox!

Spring or Autumn Equinox, this is a time of balance between dark and light, heat and cool, energy and rest.  It is one of my favorite times of year, when winter is on its way and some blessed cool gives us relief at last from our long summer.

We've been doing plenty of this and that as usual.  Andyroo is due to go back to work next month unless we can win a lottery.  It's sad because we get on so well and have such good times together.  In the meantime we are catching up on all those chores we planned to do while he was off work and that ended up taking a back seat to Fire Brigade activities.

Last weekend I spent at a course for Structural Firefighting.  I learned a lot, including why I'd rather not enter a burning building!  All kudos to the red truck guys and gals who do this for a living!

We did a lot of work on safe ladder use, especially handling the big three length ones.

 
Apparently the term for correct raising of the ladder is 'lifties', or it was by the time we'd finished, but then you get that sort of thing happening when there are five ladies in the course!  Yes five, and only four guys!  Go girl power!

I also got to use a few different types of fire extinguishers to put out fires, and that was fun. Seeing how fire acts in an enclosed room was scary, but it is always good to know more than to be ignorant.  I'd like to hope that I'll never need to know, but if I do, I'll be ready.  Using the bigger fire hoses was fun too, but rolling them all up afterwards was knackering! 

Then, I went back home to rest and do something much more genteel.  The afghan is two circuits from being finished, but of course I still can't show it to you yet.  Not till it's been gifted!  Cyrano Kitty still likes to lie on it but prefers me to be doing kitty-patting instead of crocheting.

      

Yesterday my youngest niece, Niamh, came over for an art lesson.  We did a still life of a couple of my Amigurumi, and practiced using a pencil and your thumb to get scale, then using watercolour paints on watercolour paper.  She did a good job!

Been a long time since I taught art to anyone.  Luckily I seem to remember how to do it.

Things are uploading very slowly today for some reason, so I think that will do for my blog post. I have a book to finish editing, and a floor to clean.  The sublime and the domestic.  Balance.  :)