Worthwhile investments

The first picture here shows our new friends Katy and Hannah. We only met them a month or so ago but they've already touched our lives in a lot of different ways. If friendship is like an bank account they've been making lots of deposits- of time, effort, welcome and let's face it, the sanity you sometimes need when you're at home with a baby all day and living in a town that's a long way from old friends and family. We go on lovely walks, to the Lakes, collecting blackberries and on one occasion, crashing through the undergrowth on a somewhat neglected footpath. We drink redbush tea (well the grown ups among us anyway) and share ideas, resources and laughter.
I do my best to make sure I'm investing as well as drawing on our 'friendship account' and this week I did it through the medium of knitting (surprise, surprise). I interrupted my work on the Bookworm Jumper to make a 'playground duty' hat. Gosh it sounds so simple put like that, but for some reason it took about five attempts to get the pattern going, and even then I'm not sure if it turned out how the Yarn Forward pattern meant it to. Oh well, it looks fine and it's finished.
Why 'playground duty'? Well, this week Katy finishes her maternity leave and goes back to being a teacher for two days each week. I remember well that apprehension about leaving your baby with well meaning, but none the less paid-for, carers and wondering if you can remember how to be the professional you were before breast-feeding, nappies and sleep patterns took over your life. Of course, the irony is that now the choice has (I hope temporarily) been taken away from me, I'd quite like to be a part-time working mum again.
So to try and soften the blow of going back to work, Patrick and I put together the 'Katy's Back to School Kit' with the aforementioned playground duty hat, a nice new mug (with redbush teabags) for the essential teacher pick-me-up and a photo frame for that reminder of home that's sometimes needed. Patrick helped decorate the bag before we delivered it- just a short toddle along our street, aren't we lucky to have found friends so close by?