Forced to unwind - aarrgghh!

When you're addicted to crochet like I am, taking time off doesn't feel good.  It's more like a punishment.  You've enjoyed yourself long enough now, young lady, put the hooks away.  I just don't want to stop crocheting ever.  I do wash my hair, and I bathe, I cook and I clean (okay rarely), but all these things with a heavy sigh and a bit of a strop.

However, as a friend once said to me, too much of anything is good for nothing.  And he was right.  Some days my thumbs feel ready to fall off, and so I'm forced to take a break from crochet.

On those days, I go to my favourite coffee shop and treat myself to a latte.  I don't drink coffee since the turn of the year, she lied, so this is an indulgence.  I snoop around the charity shops and pretend not to buy.  Books don't count.  Nor do candles, scarves or any form of knitwear.  That is just survival. And market research.

A few things I've observed from my snoops today.  Foreign people are often found in charity shops.  Tourists like Japanese I imagine are shopping for essential vintage style.  Asylum seekers can be found hunkered low, rooting through baskets I did not know were there.  I lurk, waiting for my turn to rummage.

Zips, ribbon and yarn are boxed at floor level, I discover.  Foreign ladies bring their children in, only to completely ignore them while they talk on the phone, handsfree, for the whole duration of their time there, to someone who may well have stopped listening twenty minutes ago, in a language which will sound overly animated to my ear.  I try not to make eye contact.

In the Oxfam book shop, I find I'm making a show of scanning the books in the Health and Medicine section, appearing nonchalant when a young student reaches forward for a title he actually understands.  He'll make someone an eligible husband someday.  Not me, I remind myself as I edge away and return to the craft section.  Not so eligible.  I suspect ladies who craft have a reputation for spending Saturday night weaving creations from their facial hair.  Then boasting about it on Facebook on Sunday morning.

On the train home, I spy a window seat I have a burning desire to occupy at all costs and am delighted when it's still free after everyone else has filed in.  Ah, I can definitely manifest my own reality, I think to myself.

But then I wonder, is my desire to fulfil my needs perhaps just utter selfishness, or maybe even an undiagnosed mental health issue?  I get out my crochet and try not to glance around to see if people are watching.

Back home, I'm on social media again, round and around, from Gmail to Facebook to YouTube to Etsy https://goo.gl/WfHJjf, how many people are waiting for my reply.  Not that many today, though still I circle.

Of course I begin to crochet again.  I've abstained for a whole three hours.  What I did for twenty minutes on the train doesn't count, and I think you know it.

Chevron  Maxi Scarf pattern https://goo.gl/dSBrDd

I play my audiobook https://goo.gl/koGJZE off my phone and I'm working again.  The thumbs are starting to burn and I'm okay with that.  I'm only sorry that my day off is almost over and I haven't relaxed once.