SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Because once it has reached full, the sand doesn't recover from being compacted all at once, it's more vulnerable, it fills quicker. And 15,000 steps later I'm in the loft. I seem to be listening to Offenbach and my crochet is within reach. And I'm soothing the hourglass. 020
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/10/2026I try to move deliberately and calmly so that the hourglass is in balance, the top level not rising any more. And I step back from any moment of consternation because it takes very little for the sand to compact, the top to start to fill and the trickle to subside to grains at a time. 110
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/10/2026And I wait while I picture the glacially slow trickle of sand start to gradually increase, return not to normal but getting there, see the top glass become not quite so full. And I wait. And when it's about 2/3 full I start moving again but slowly. 110
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/10/2026So quite suddenly I have no capacity for messages to trickle through. And I stand and I close my eyes, I feel the wind, my sweat, the way my trousers touch my calf. I hear the birds, aeroplanes, random whispers. I smell air and dogshit, I sense the taste of the nakd bar still on my tongue. 110
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/10/2026It's like I have an hour glass that constantly fills up, but normally hovers at about 1/3 full of sand with a steady trickle to the lower one. It's mostly in balance. Ten mins of cognitive strain and the top one fills, and as it compacts, it blocks. 120
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Instead of looking down at where I'm placing my feet on rough ground I tried looking forwards and trusting proprioception and balance for my footings. It was incredibly hard mental work. A few minutes of it did me in. 120
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/10/2026I realise I've developed a visualisation for when I realise I've overworked the capacity of stuff in my head to process messages from my nerves. Today, 90 minutes or so into our walk I was trying to do something different. 120
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Making a crochet neckwarmer out of yarn that frankly looked nicer as a ball of yarn than it does as a small scarf like thing. Nonetheless I have now invested heavily in 30mm buttons for it, which I'm hoping will be the making of it. 🧶 190
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Embarking on dog's evening "toilet time" and dog and I came face to face, less than a foot from the backdoor with a hedgehog. We all had a moment. Fortunately mine involved grabbing the dog's lead and leading a hasty retreat into the house. The hedgehog departed in its own good time. 030
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 15/09/2026I hadn't read the Walrus and the Carpenter poem since my early teens. Opened my book at random and there it was, and I was ready to settle into it with a comfiness. Then I read the introduction and now I'm plain alarmed by the tyrant, the annihilation, the behaviours. Horrified. 010
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 14/09/2026I am inexperienced at blocking! I maybe have done it twice in my life before. I've never felt the need but some of the current stuff is a bit curly. I hadn't thought about the impact blocking might have on weaving in tails! 010
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Working from home in the dining room with a dog keeping my foot warm. It's not so bad. 030
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 13/09/2026I'm making a slow crochet scarf / shawl thing. It has motifs. I am making one, then I am blocking it, and then I am weaving in the ends. Before I make the next one. None of this is like me. 🧶 1130
Reposted by SmileyAliSue Kirk @suekirk.bsky.social · 22/08/2025Remember, as we enter Giant Spider season, that when people say 'they are more scared of us than we are of them' this remains unproven and is spider propaganda. 815845
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 12/09/2026The prizes were very much lovely little hand made things, all of which I could have made for myself in two hours and using yarn from the stash. Hence relieved not to win something I neither needed nor wanted. 010
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 12/09/2026When did Tombola tickets get to be £2 a shot? I mean, it's fine, I was relieved not to win a prize, and to have made a small contribution to the running of the event. But when did this happen? I have not bought a tombola ticket in some time! 110
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Tombolas. I've been to a local makers market thing at the Providence Church. There was a tombola, and as I had mooched around but not found any way of contributing to the economy thought I'd buy a Tombola ticket - which I did. 110
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Reading a Mark Manson quote "Extreme productivity is just socially acceptable self-harm.". Resonates. 031
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Say I were to have totally gone off podcasts on politics and self help, beyond the Rest is History, what is interesting listening, while not being too interesting? 100
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 11/09/2026It's hard to beat the joy of going through a bag of yarn related things and rediscovering your favourite crochet hook. 🧶 070
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 07/09/2026I made cashew nut sour cream and was amazed by how good it was. Even with substituting rice vinegar for cider vinegar. 020
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/09/2026I am listening to a podcast which now has me questioning why as a little girl I had this whole raft of different teenager dolls and why I never wanted one of the boy dolls. Barbie but no Ken. I have no answers. 010
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Note that I've not contacted the MS nurse. I'm pausing, and might do that on Monday if nothing has changed. New symptoms need to lurk for 24 - 48 hours, and I'm still a little hopeful of another explanation. Never have I been so hopeful of a sore throat, blocked nose, evidence of illness. 220
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/09/2026But actually I'm really scared that this is my body beginning to fail. Logically I understand that there are things I can do. That there is neuroplasticity, loss of function is not always permanent. But I have a spinal lesion, and the same rules don't apply. So yes, I'm scared. 140
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/09/2026I am trying to contain my fear that maybe this is it, the future has arrived, this is how it is for me now, deterioration has entered the room. I am trying to tell myself that this is fatigue, perhaps my immune system is handling something. 140
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/09/2026My legs have been hurting for a couple of days. Imagine you're an occasional walker and you did Snowdon, and you've got expected leg aches the following day? That's how they've felt, but without having actually walked up a hill at all. 130
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 04/09/2026My #MSFriday musings. I'm scared. I've had a bad few days. I had to stop work at midday yesterday because cognitively I had nothing to give. I couldn't even handle the routine tasks I save up for days like this. I just had to stop. 330
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Congratulations to me on getting older - this is my final month of mortgage on my home. 080
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 01/09/2026In honesty, grown up children should not have possessions at their parents house. Mum's home is not a museum of childhood, nor a storage facility. 110
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 01/09/2026My 83 year old mother has put up a photo of one of our childhood teddy bears on the family WhatsApp and advised us that he's going in the bin. Watch this space for updates. 110
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 30/08/2026Picked up the winter jumper I didn't finish crocheting by the end of last winter. Now trying to remind myself which pattern, and which stitch. Maybe it'll be good for this winter, yes? 040
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 29/08/2026By way of experiment, I am listening to a Brahms violin concerto. Unexpectedly, I'm liking it. I have a rocking chair and a book too. 150
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 28/08/2026Copilot AI knows me well. "I just want the people paid to make the decision to make the decision". Spot on. 000
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 27/08/2026I do know I'm just so slightly embarrassed about this that I don't tell other half, I just absorb them into the household / charity bag / yarn bombing system. 140
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 27/08/2026I have, over the last 18 months, acquired three of the sturdy bags for life that have been discarded around town. All of them clean and looking like they've been used just once. I have no idea whether the utter lunacy here is people discarding them or me acquiring them. 150
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 21/08/2026Today on #MSFriday I boldly adapted an Overcoming MS muffin recipe. It substituted blackberries from my garden for raspberries and some leftover smoothie for passion fruit pulp. They maybe are a little soft but they will do. 030
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 15/08/2026The dog has tipped up the bucket with the small balls of leftover yarn and the scrappy project. I'm kind of avoiding returning to the front room to observe the carnage. 040
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 15/08/2026Feeling the sadness, the horror, the loss (although not personal to me) of two deaths yesterday. Allowing the sadness to sink into my stomach and sit there, contained, feeling, reflecting, stretching to the actual friends and families who are without someone they loved dearly. 250
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 14/08/2026Stable, largely. Biggest impact is fatigue; that's what stops me living an entirely "normal" life. 130
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 14/08/2026And actually when I look back - I mean, did I really enjoy that. Was I doing it because nothing more enjoyable was available? I think 10km established itself as my enjoyable distance. Not that I've even done 5 in the last year but that's the dog's fault. 010
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 14/08/2026My lockdown involved a lot of fell running. By the end of it I'd notched up some 30km days headed out up Kinder. I doubt I'll get back to that point, and as it took a lockdown to do, even a totally able me would struggle to do the training volume, just on time availability. 110
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 14/08/2026Just over the horizon I can see a me that considers tiptoeing into the future with a degree of optimism and can lift my head up and see something that's a beginning not an ending. 160
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 14/08/2026Panic, mourning, grief, confusion, bewilderment, worry, catostrophising, capture, review, adjust. Repeat capture, review, adjust. Repeat capture, review, adjust. 120
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 14/08/2026Three years. I've done three years on the Overcoming MS diet. Maybe two years of really focussing on how my behaviour, feelings, thoughts keep me in a chronic stress state, and a tiny step at a time tackling that. Reasonable adjustments at work. 110
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 14/08/2026Every month I permit myself the indulgence of one hand written A5 page in my MS note book. It is facts and data oriented, not how I feel. It notes symptoms, frequency, duration, anything I'm concerned about, any actions taken (increasing weight training etc). 110
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 14/08/2026My #MSFriday musings. I've always been someone a little hung up on dates (I won't forget dates of birth of my people). So, I can see hovering the three years since MS diagnosis mark in my calendar at the end of this month. 330
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 13/08/2026Chances that it'll be 22 degrees by reasonable bedtime tonight? 000
SmileyAli @smileyali68.bsky.social · 13/08/2026My entire day is trying to convince the dog to lie down. If I sit on the kitchen floor he'll come and lie next to me. If I sit on the floor in the dining room and offer him a hand stripping session (wirehaired pointer thing) he'll do that. The plumber is the most exciting thing all day. 020