Why I'm feeling a wee bit fed up with myself -

 and what I've done about it. 

I had a look around recently at various places in my house and all I saw was stuff I'd started and never finished. Jigsaws. Books. Knitting (and crochet) projects. And I felt overwhelmed. 

It was one of those moments when you just feel you need to give yourself a stern talking to, so naturally I did not try to redress the balance by thinking about all the jigsaw puzzles I've completed, the books I have read to the end, and the finished knitting and crochet projects I have done. Because that would have been  sensible  but not the way my mind was working. 

I resolved to do something about it, and with that n mind since we got back from Glasgow I have finished two knitting projects, one fairly recent and the other one - well not. 

Here's the older one. 

I finished it yesterday, it will make a lovely Christmas present for my friend R., who likes purple, it used up two skeins of my wool stash, previously it was just hanging about untidily on top of a pile of boxes in my study and now it isn't. Win/win/win. 

The more recent one is this. Pair no. two of three pairs of Christmas socks for this year. 

I have been beavering away at a jigsaw puzzle for a limited time every day and it is growing - picture to come when it is finally done and before it gets sent off to the library as I will never do it again. I wouldn't have bought it in the first place had I known it was one of those works of the devil where many of the pieces just abut one another, rather than clicking together. I hate those! not so much because it makes things harder, but because little cat paws can wreak much more havoc as they walk over them than they can the normal type.  

And I have also finished two books this week. One was a 'detective' novel called Murder at the Gorge by Frances Evesham. I think I can rise to the heights of 'workmanlike' to describe this. It's the 7th in a series with the overall title of the Exham on Sea Murders. I won't be wasting my time on the other six. The other one was a novel being given away by the library (part of their regular de-stocking where they put boxes of books in the foyer and invite you to take away any that appeal). It was House of Moons by Susan Moody. I read a lot of Susan Moody in the 1980s, she had a series about a private detective who was I think tall, black and gay. They all had Penny in the title and were very good. House of Moons is a standalone and I picked it up partly for old times sake and partly because a lot of it is set in Spain. I enjoyed it very much, lots of twists and red herrings in the plot, good characterisation, and some nice descriptions of Spain. It was a bit 'old fashioned' in tone, difficult to pin down exactly what I mean by that, there's just something very 1980s about it,  But streets head of say Victoria Hislop, who people rave about and who I just cannot get on with at all. 

And yes, I have my next two unfinished books to read and my next two unfinished knitting projects picked out. Watch this space.