Live @ the lounge

Stay home and knit something ...

Yeah gidday. Lizard here. How’s it all going?

I’ve just got back from a seminar held annually, or every 12 months or so, just this side of Piha. It’s a long weekend, chocka full of workshops on all sorts of useful ideas. Kikuyu … when is the right time to plant? Gorse … much more than a beautiful hedgerow. My absolute favourite was Dressing the Dining Table ... using molten lead and jelly moulds. I made a way cool serviette ring. I got home to an empty caravan, although a possum seems to have made itself very comfy in the luton. What ever. Friendly wee thing. Well dressed?

Shaz said she was going through a ‘pause on men’ chapter in her life so had nipped across the ditch to spend some quality time with her Mum, Vera.

Vera is hard case and quite the success story really. A few years back, when, as she put it, “I was in-between husbands,” to make ends meet, Vera moved to a tiny town on the outskirts of Numurkah. That’s in the middle of Victoria. The rent was next to nothing and she easily found a part time job cleaning out the ablution blocks in the many camp grounds and single men’s mining cabins dotted throughout the bush.

When Covid hit, she was perfectly placed to upscale her operation. With a healthy government grant, she and her now large team provided sanitised public facilities. A sideline of hand gels. Single-use toilet paper. Drycleanable cardboard face masks [male or female graphics]. Even motion sensor hands-free flushing toilets.

Vera now has a fleet of vans, all professionally sign written with her logo and mission statement, When it comes to poo…We’ve got you covered. Shaz had organised Mopey Jesus to drop by and keep an eye on me while she was in Australia.

“Ah, Australia,” Mopey said. “You go over on vacation. Come back on probation.” He’s such a great mate but was a bit worried I was spending too much time on my own.

“You should come along to my mainly men knitting group tonight Lizard.”

To be quite honest, I come from a long line of male knitters. I still fondly look back on he time I helped Dad put up the crocheted letterbox he so proudly knitted one Queen’s Birthday weekend. Mopey picked me up and we drove to the Brass Band Hall on Hillsborough. I was surprised to see so many Harley Davidsons parked outside. Inside the hall sat a dozen or so heavy-set bearded men, chatting away while furiously click, click, clicking their needles to the groovy beats of Toots and the Maytals. An at least seven-foot-tall skin-headed man sloped up and shook Mopey’s hand.

“This is Lizard,” said Mopey Jesus.

“Welcome Lizard. I see you’ve brought your own needles. Size 16s. Classic. Grab a skein of wool, any colour, and join in. We’ve got a production line going. Can you cast on?”

“Yep. No worries.”

I asked what they were knitting and Syd, the skinhead, explained how, a while back he was home trying to knit his youngest a jumper that went very wrong.

“When the nipper pulled it over his head, the sleeves got stuck and he wore it as a balaclava from then on. Loved it. Couldn’t get it off him. So that’s what we’re making. Balaclavas. Can’t make enough of them. They’re sweet under our bike helmets so bangers dig em. Mates on the low-down pulling a home burg swear by them.

“We even send them to the Middle East. I’ve got Youtube clips of women getting married over there wearing our balaclavas.

“Over there is Ayaz. He owns three Turkish kebab joints where you get a free balaclava with every baklava. He’s killing it.

“We have orders for 40 xxl in assorted colours and 10 sm in pink hues. Another pair of needles will be awesome.” So it was. I’ve been to the mainly men’s knitting group about six times now. Love it. Shaz is back from a couple of weeks isolation. Loved that. No surprise. Stay warm. Stay safe. Hey, stay home and knit something. You’ll love it. Promise.

Later, Lizard.

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