Unlucky in love? More like unlucky with laptops!

 

I've ruined yet another laptop.  Honestly, I can't be trusted anywhere near them.  My previous laptop was killed by me spilling a cup of tea all over the keyboard, and this one died a death when I dropped it.  The screen looks like an abstract artwork.  It will probably be futile but I'll enquire about getting it repaired.  In the meantime I'll have to look at the small print on my contents insurance to see if it's covered by accidental damage.  It's not like I even dropped it from a great height, but it's massively annoying.  Anyway, enough of my whingeing.  What's done is done.  

The weather was mild and dry enough for me to venture down to the allotment for the first time yesterday.  I pruned back brambles and a wild rose, and have the scratches on my arms to prove it.  There were a few purple crocuses flowering, and thankfully the weeds haven't got too much out of hand over winter.  

Back home I finished reading Louise Erdrich's 'The Night Watchman' which was extremely good.  It's set in 1950s America, North Dakota to be precise, and concerns the Chippewa tribe.  There's a government proposal to dismantle the reservation and stop financial support for the Native Americans, and to effectively force them to move to the cities.  The main characters in the book are all involved in fighting this, and there are also various love stories going on.  As well as a heartbreaking glimpse into the desperate plight of some Native women who were trafficked into prostitution during this period.  There's plenty of light and humour in the book though, so don't think it's a depressing read.  I've started reading Andrew Taylor's 'The Second Midnight', set largely in Czechoslovakia during the second world war.  An English boy's abandoned by his father and has to pass himself of as a Czech .  He becomes embroiled with the resistance, then taken under the wing of a Nazi officer.  It's a real page turner, and the ideal book for a rainy, windy Sunday when allotmenting is out of the question.  I've also picked up four more books to add to the never-disappearing To-Be-Read pile, and was especially pleased to find 'The Mad Women's Ball'.  That's long been on my list of titles to look out for.   

On the crafty front I'm on day 38 of the Ann Wood stitchbook challenge, and this is progress on the latest page.  The snippet of tape measure was from an ancient one found in a bag of sewing threads that I bought from - inevitably - a charity shop.  The tape's too worn to be of use, so it's gradually being cut up and used for random crafts.  

Another thing I've got on the go is this 'doodle cloth'.  It's a decidedly grubby patchworked piece of Indian scrap fabric, and I was debating whether to dye it.  But I've decided it'll make a good 'doodle cloth'.  Something to randomly embroider into with whatever colour and stitch I fancy.  There's a small amount of what looks like factory embroidered gold thread on it already, and my own stitches won't be half as neat!  

Well, there's not much more to tell you.  I've been carrying on with my clutter-clearing, and managed to throw a bread maker and a deep fat fryer into the local electrical recycling bin.  Neither was being used as I don't eat much bread and fat-frying isn't recommended when you're watching your weight.  I've sorted out more odds & ends to list on eBay, and whatever doesn't sell on there can be take to the charity shop.  More books have been donated to the charity bookshelf in the local supermarket, so that's helping my clearing-up too.  It feels good to shed these things.  I'm not a hoarder by any stretch of the imagination, but one person shouldn't have a houseful of possessions.  I want to travel lighter through this world, not bogged down by rooms full of objects.  Maybe you feel the same?