Getting back into the groove

Getting back to work in the middle of January was also a shock, similar to arriving in India, even though I had tried to prepare it before leaving for the Christmas break. We are in the middle of working on the development of an important new law on accessibility in Europe - this is of course very exciting but also a lot of work!

The first week back I actually hardly spent any time in the office because I had to go to two different meetings in France instead. I still hadn't caught up with all the e-mails in my inbox and there wasn't even wifi on the trains - gaaaaah! I don't think I have to explain how this multiplied my stress levels. Now I have settled back in but work is still very intense and I have a few more work trips lined up as well, which makes it both more exciting but also more stressful.

Other than that I enjoy being home and also having a bit of winter. The south of Belgium was having unusually much snow and even more unusually, it didn't melt straight away. It was even possible to go cross-country skiing! We preferred a leisurely walk up an icy hill instead, though. And as you can see from the pictures, we were lucky with the weather and it was sunny the entire weekend.

I have also started a new knitting project and ordered a whole box full of Létt-Lopi for two additional Icelandic sweaters - I couldn't hold back this time. During the holidays I only knitted socks and due to my bad planning I didn't take enough yarn of each colour which left me with 3 mismatching socks in my attempt to use the scrap yarn efficiently. Now I have to unravel another old pair of socks to use the yarn to make them match again. I'll never get rid of my scrap yarn like this...

Anyway, what you can see in the last pictures is the beginning of a new lopi peysa (I think this will become my new years' tradition) following a pattern by Veronika which I loved immediately when I saw it. It's a testknit and so far it's been going well - quick as usual - although I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the colour. The Lopi palette doesn't have any decent shades of yellow so the one I picked in the end is not as nice as in the original pattern. But I'll see how the final outcome is, the dull February light can be deceiving sometimes.

What is left in the "magic box" is the material for a "Birki" sweater. I saw this colour combination by chomolhari on ravelry and I really like the red-brown main colour because I usually take grey - it makes the yoke come out nicer than darker colours. But this time I was convinced by the different scheme, looking forward to casting it on!