Rainy night in Perthshire

It has snowed and blown a gale.

There is still a howling gale outside tonight. The storm has taken down tree limbs and rearranged all the little ones plastic toys into an almost tidy pile in the corner of the yard.
It is a sneaky fast wind, one which rearranges your hair into fifteen different styles (none fashionable) then steals your hat and flings it into a forlorn corner of the farmyard.
The layers of clothing were all back on today yet, oddly, there were tiny wafts of warm air on the wind. I suppose anything which gives respite from the constant minus zero temperatures will feel tropical but there it was, a palpable change in the temperature. Just fleetingly.

We tried to rush the feeding but the wind slowed everything down to the sedate rhythm of Stornoway on a Sunday.
It was easier lugging feedbags if you were pointing the right direction like the little figures on a weather vane. Not so easy against the wind but marvellous for the upper bingo wing area of the arms.

Once everything was done, we came in and tried to thaw out for a while. The little one was given a warm bath as he had been jumping in puddles and the best puddle had gone beyond wellie level.

We got the house warm for the evening and settled down to huddle by the fire and radiator while the gale played a mournful pibroch outside.

I am knitting a cardigan for our youngest son. I am making it two sizes too large as I am a very slooow knitter and get a bit fed up if the knitting requires more than 20 stitches on large needles.
The pattern claims to be fairly straightforward - no fancy bits and only one button hole but it takes around five minutes to do one row and I have to watch every stitch.
I Committed my Life to finishing the front half (December nights)and now there is the long haul of doing the back.
At this rate, he will be 21 by the time it is done and it won't fit.

How can I enthuse?

Well, the wool is lovely, bits of cotton and silk through it plus the colours are bonny. It is just the process of knitting....knit, purl, knit, don't look away, purl..zzz

I look at other craft blogs and feel so inadequate. Other people seem to whip articles up in no time at all and are enthusiastic.
I knit because I sometimes feel comatose with boredom on a winter night once the little one is in bed and the Farmer has fallen asleep on the sofa.
The work outside tends to knock the last remnants of energy from us once we come inside to the heat yet I feel a sense of needing to do something that does not demand too much physically.

The colours of the wool remind me of the early days of autumn when there are flowers in the garden and heat from the sun on your back and the dark russets and browns are the brackens which curl up and hide from the winter.

Today was good though. I felt the warmth in the wind.