Hi All – I am still here! Life is hectic so thank goodness for the railway and time for hooky.

Lovely to use yarns from the stashes of others. Wonderful to incorporate the pale brown Patons 3-ply wool that had belonged to JGs mum. It is really delicate and inspired me to use an adapted Victorian circle motif to make a light-weight scarf. Chunkier yet beautiful in its own rustic way, it’s……

Comfort Blanket Part 2! Comfort blanket 1 was getting too weighty to take on the train then I had a brainwave (I know, me? have a brain? and a wave to wash through it?!)…the blanket could be made in panels! Now my daughter has a chance of seeing it before the end of the decade.

Its amazing how much you can get done while sitting on a train. Crochet and audio books play a large part in my commute. Cumbria Library Service have a free audio book download service. Its great. I have in-train entertainment and a good story on the walk home all through my library membership and a few clicks to download a Clipper book onto my iPod. I listened to Ann Granger’s atmospheric Victorian murder mystery, jumping at every shadow on my misty, dark early morning commutes. I never learn. Now I am listening to Susanna Gregory’s marvelous medieval murder mystery the Tarnished Chalice…

I love her characters and some of the dialogue is very funny.

So far so self-contained. What about these sociable Saturdays? Since I’ve been working away in the week the only chance I get to see my friends is Saturday (sorry Sunday but you are chore and a snooze day) and what a lovely few weekends I’ve had.

Last Saturday began with meeting up with JG. She came over to help me clear rubbish out of the house and take it to the tip. I know that doesn’t sound promising but it was funny and what would have been an awful chore turned out to be easier and quicker because I had a fantastic friend to help me with it.

I spent the afternoon at KC’s with FT and AW having a good old chin-wag and eating a delicious salad-y lunch finished off with one of AW’s creations a berry cheesecake:

let’s catch that again… droooooool.

Delicious though the food was we were really there to meet the latest addition to KCs family,

Hello Kiciek! What a friendly and courteous cat you are, gorgeous. Kiciek a rescue cat has obviously settled into her new home. She sweetly said hello to all her guests and spent time with everyone. The perfect hostess.

Yesterday kicked off with a Latin catch-up with AH. Unbelievably we reached the end of Book 4. Whoowhooo… and its only taken us 4 years!

But you know what this means? BOOK 5!!! Next time we meet for Latin AH and I will embark on the last (yes the last) book in the series. Then what will we do? well, with an average speed of a book a year I don’t suppose I really need worry about that just yet, maybe this time next year.

Yesterday was rounded off with a relaxed evening of chat and shared best books (Ken Follett and Henning Mankell at the mo’), best TV (loving ‘Borgen’ and recommended ‘Legacy’, must watch  Alan ‘Imagine’ Yentob our guilty fancy…), radio, film (live stream of Richard II with David Tennant sounded excellent), you name it with JG and AJ. With all that cultural input all I could do was  curl up in bed with a good book, 

look forward to the next one, 

and drift off to dream about projects to come…

Have a good weekend.