Socks and Sochi

I am loving the winter Olympics.  Such a great excuse to put the tv on early morning, get out my knitting, plain pattern socks so as not to distract from the action,  and enjoy the madness of sports that seem so very modern and dangerous to me.  The alpine atmosphere has been increased recently with the snow outside the window as well as on the screen.

I've watched crazy people in lycra skin suits speeding round on skates and folk in flappy shell suits spinning themselves into the air on skate boards.   Nowadays it isn't enough to perform a graceful ski jump or slide down an icy slope veering between bendy poles, you have to hurl yourself sky high to twist and turn, grab your skate board or cross your skis whilst upside down above the snow landing backwards as you speed into the next jump facing the wrong way.  You can't simply ski cross country without stopping to lay down and fire at targets with your rifle every now and then. I have an idea that in the future it might be a requirement to send a text or take a selfie whilst mid flight. 
The language is all new too, I had no idea what the half pipe was or slopestyle until this week.  Even the commentators are so un-BBC screaming and whooping with exclamations like solid or stomped it down when things go well for team GB and weeping when we won our first medal.
The venue is impressive, I think the buildings are beautiful and I love the names,  the ice cube curling centre, the sliding centre, the iceberg skating palace.  The mountain locations are stunning too though the weather is warmer than expected, its decidedly colder here in Scotland than it is in Sochi. 
We had lots of talk of terrorism, corruption and intolerance before the games and people will always put down the expense.  Maybe these events won't make the world a better place but at the moment to me they feel very positive and I imagine the Scottish ski resorts, which have plenty of snow, are going to be busy this weekend with people who want to have a go.  The power of sport can be inspiring and unifying but even if I was 40 years younger you wouldn't get me on one of those boards.  

Post publish note
Yes I should have told you the yarn is Regia Mix-it color which I bought from Kemps Wool Shop in Sunderland and very gorgeous it is too.  I love Regia.