And just like that – I am back

Tuesday 6^th January 2026

Oh come on, it’s only been 5 years. What’s 5 years between friends?

The last 5 years have honestly passed in a dream. Or sometimes, a fever dream. And sometimes, if I am really honest, in a nightmare – but these were brief and we survived.

You’re here for the knitting, right? I’m here for the knitting too. So that’s good.

Here is one of my most recent designs, a Fisherman’s Kep:

But first – what have you been up to? Are you still knitting, creating, gardening?

When Covid hit the world, in early 2020, I thought we’d all get back to ‘normal’ (normal is a pretty wide term, but let’s agree there isn’t a better word now) quite quickly. Obviously I didn’t hold any events, but I completed 2 years of the knit club gifts knits. When restrictions were lifted, I started teaching again, just locally, and held 2 residential events at the wonderful Hurds Hill. 

However, in the first lock down, along side writing my Covid letters to you all, and a bit of voluntary food delivery in the village, I started working in residential adult social care, and by September, I was working for the National Autistic Society as a Support Worker.

Now, no-one goes in for this work for the money. I mean, you do get paid but the ratio of pay to responsibility is another blog all on its own. I did it because I didn’t know how else I might usefully get out of the house – and this started in lockdown 1 – and make some difference, though I was unable to see how.

Anyway, 5 years later and I have now left that job. When I was a support worker, it was like being in a totally different world, and I felt like a totally different person. In fact, I am totally different. But, once I left the NAS, gradually the old life – I mean knitting – slowly flowed back in. 

I don’t know yet, what future knitting work or activity might look like. But I do know that I have space and energy and time, all of which was in short supply as a support worker, for designing and knitting. 

So, shall we keep in touch?

I have a lot of thoughts about the world I have emerged into, blinking and a bit unsteady, as I come round from a 5 year waking-coma!

Here is some more Kep content: