Begin at the beginning

This is my story, and as with every story it has to have a beginning, and this beginning, as in all the best stories, started a long, long time ago (or, to be more precise, when I was about five) and it came about completely by chance. We had all gone into town, my mother, my brother and I, to a café we had regularly frequented, where we discovered that the upper floor was occupied by a group of reenacters all kitted out in the fashions of bygone eras, demonstrating traditional fibre arts. One of them had brought along a spindle, which fascinated me as I had never before seen one being used, and with more than a little help I even managed to spin what was possibly some of the lumpiest yarn ever. But that didn’t matter; I had made it and thought it was wonderful. As I walked away from the café with my hand clasped tightly around that little lumpy tangle in my pocket I felt wonderfully happy and extremely proud of it, and at that moment I decided I wanted to learn to spin one day. But as with many things it never got any further than that, but I remembered that feeling, the joy of making something, and it stayed lodged somewhere in the depths of my memory.
Now, nothing at all may have come of it, and that is what would have most likely happened if I hadn’t, by chance, found myself with a massive slice of time to fill (for which I am not going to account, as it would take far too long). It was at this point that I suddenly remembered all those years ago, walking down the road with a hand tightly clasped around my yarn, and that feeling of being perfectly blissfully happy, and I said to myself now is as good a time as any to learn to spin. And I’ve never looked back, but what I can tell you is this; I am a self confessed fibre addict, I have a love affair with drumcarded batts, I have Way too many spindles and yet never enough and that I’m never happier than when I’ve got a spindle in one hand and some fibre in the other.