I always think you can tell a lot about the current state of my life from my Instagram feed. A lot of garter stitch or a lot of plain vanilla stripey socks is a sure fire way of signalling that I'm under stress. When times are difficult I do what knitters the world over do and reach for their needles. But complicated charts and fiddly cables are a no-no when your brain is fried and all you crave is the comforting embrace of yarn and soothing stitches.

DH had surgery at the weekend for a planned knee procedure and I thought we were well prepared. Turns out that we were just in denial, both about the procedure itself and the cold hard practicalities of his extended rehab and lack of mobility. It's been a grim week, I can't lie but as ever my knitting and specifically my stripey socks have kept me sane.

I'm afraid that keeping up with my daily sock tips rather fell by the wayside though. Something had to give and whilst it turns out that I can quite easily manage a short blog post every day (I quite like being able to pop on here for some random rambling) coming up with a short, snappy and actionable sock tip every day was a bit beyond me at the moment.

So we are 1 week into a 6 week rehab programme - wonder how many stripey socks I can churn out before the end? And I wonder whether any will be for the patient or will they all be for ME??