Granny Stripes and Going Troppo

It hasn’t been all that long since my last Leftover Granny update, but it seems to have grown loads (heaps!) since then! 

The reason I’ve done so much – besides the fact that the pattern is so simple that I can do it without even looking, meaning I can watch TV or films, or even read my kindle, while hooking away – is that it is so damn hot here right now!!!! I know that this seems a very odd reason for doing blankety things, but really there isn’t much else I can do…

A tropical touch ;)

There’s a phrase over here ‘gone troppo’. ‘Troppo’ is Aussie slang for tropical, and ‘to go troppo’ comes from how nuts you go during the tropical wet season (The Wet), when the heat and humidity rises. I can definitely see that happening! By 7.30am it’s too hot to do much, and even inside with curtains shading out the sun and fans on full blast, it’s pretty sticky just sitting down. If I get the hoover out, or even do the washing up, it’s so bad I actually need a shower afterwards! I end up feeling very restless and grumpy and miserable!

Going out on my bike or walking out to meet friends is extremely uncomfortable, and one day that I was out with a friend and her little daughter, I stayed out too long and actually ended up feeling quite ill for a couple of days afterwards! All of the clubs have finished up now until after the New Year too – as Christmas is in the summer down under, this is the time for the long holidays just like we have in the summer in the UK, but also this far north (nearer the equator) life shuts down to a degree as no-one can tolerate The Wet very well, even if they are born here – so I have no hope!

Therefore, at the moment I spend my days inside with fans on full, switching the air conditioning on for a blast when things really get too much (air con is very expensive to run). I search online for jobs – no luck finding anything yet – I do the home study for my new course (so far 2 assessments done with a score of 10/10 each!) and I crochet to keep boredom at bay…

Sometimes I also go to the shopping centre for a coffee so that I can sit in the proper air conditioning too, as our household air con unit is not enough to cool down the open plan lounge/kitchen/dining room/hallway…

With all this time and nothing much to do, Leftover Granny Stripe has grown to almost full-size already, despite me taking time out to work on other things too.

See a little something in the top right corner there? More about that later... ;)

I think it’s only one more set of stripes away from being full length now, and then I can work on the border.

And then I can put it away for some time, because it’s too damn hot for sheets here, let alone blankets!!