What has my life become? How have I become someone who knits? That's probably a little pre-emptive, since I'm yet to finish one scarf and the thought of a jumper freaks me out, but I'm enjoying the process.

'Enjoying the process' has become a catch cry round here. Jamie asks me how my knitting is going and if I'm 'enjoying the process'. My bestie - herself a mad keen knitter of beanies and mittens - told me that I should 'enjoy the process' just when I was getting so frustrated with my mistakes that I was about to stick a 10 gauge needle in my eye. I did not take this well. 'Enjoy the process?' I mocked. 'ENJOY THE FUCKING PROCESS?'. I'd made so many errors - thank god scarfs are forgiving - and I'd undone and redone so many rows it wasn't funny. The other day I unravelled the whole thing because there were too many mistakes and the row was so awful I couldn't see how to undo the nightmare. I tried unravelling a few rows and then pulled the whole thing apart in a fit. Fuck this shit, I thought. I don't think knitting is actually for me.

But as I kept knitting, something niggled at me.

Was I actually enjoying the process?

Thic Nat Hanh spoke about something like this. YOu have to enjoy the little moments in life, the chores, the mundane - because there are joys in simply breathing, simply living. You don't always have to focus on the outcome - on where you think you should be, or what you think life should look like.

Sure, I want the scarf at the end of it. I want to finish. But the act of knit one, purl one is something I'm beginning to enjoy.

I can knit in the car watching the surf.

I can knit as a passenger on the way to town.

I can knit watching TV.

I can knit as Jamie is talking endlessly at me about bikepacking and AI. Again. Knit one, purl one.

And I'm beginning to understand how to undo a stitch and see what's wrong, so it's less frustrating.

I even started knitting a yellow infinity scarf (Jamie jokes that I am knitting to the end of time and beyond) of 44 rows, knit one purl one, unlike the 33 rows of knit two purl two I was doing with my 'rustic' neutral scarf.

It's becoming less about the horror of the process, and definitely more the enjoyment of it.