Making a mess

How is it that when I do a book signing at a fair, I'm usually the last to arrive, but never the last to finish setting up. I'm organised and ready to talk to passing people and sign books.

Why then, did signing and packing books on my kitchen table become a scene of total chaos? By the time I fetched my assortment of padded envelopes to actually pack the books, there was nowhere left to put them but the floor, where a passing cat wondered whether to walk on them or stay and destroy them - luckily he chose not to destroy them, he probably saw that I had already surpassed him in messing the place up...

Finally the books were in envelopes, all containing a card with a message on (hopefully all to the same people as the outer envelope was addressed to...) and all that remained was to clear the table.

It occured to me as I packed away, that this was the worst and the best part of working from a kitchen table:
Worst because I have to clear everything away at the end of the day.
 Best because I have to clear everything away at the end of the day, and so, have a clear table to start a new mess everyday.

Knitted sheep - inspired by the book But I'm Not Sleepy

Meet the sheep...

You must always remember you saw it here first...!

This is the first sheep in the flock, the prototype you might say for the ones to follow. And follow they will, as now I have a pattern, written down as I knitted, on the plain side of the paper band from the ball of wool.

Where, you might ask are all these sheep headed? Well they could follow each other around the kitchen table, get lost in the knitting bag, but ultimately they're  headed for Christmas fairs around the York area to promote the book that inspired them But I'm Not Sleepy.

So next time you are tempted to count sheep as an aid to going to sleep, bare in mind the chaos that could ensue when a flock of sheep start rampaging around the bedroom, not to mention the knitted sheep that will inevitably follow...