Current mood:	tired
Current music:	Biko - Peter Gabriel

The last few days
Ho hum, sorry for disappearing, I had a busy Friday and Saturday and wore myself out so much that it's taken two days to recover.

It was malabar's birthday on Friday. After presents and breakfast we went for a picnic and a walk over at Sand Point over near Weston. Fortunately the weather held up, it alternated between sunny and cloudy but dry and I even got slightly sunburnt on my shoulders. Lots of birds, butterflies, wild flowers, brambles and fresh sea air - glorious. We're planning to go back in a few weeks when the blackberries are ripe, also we didn't manage to visit the ruined medieval priory. In the evening we went out for a nice meal in our local Greek restaurant, then came home and rubbed lotion on the birthday girl (her skin suffered badly from the high altitudes in South America - yeah, I know it sounds like a lame excuse but it's true!) All in all, it was a lovely day and malabar said it was the nicest birthday she's had in ages.

	Looking out over the mud flats towards Weston Super Mare, although the town is hidden behind the hill. The day was much brighter than this photo makes it look
	The view towards Wales.
	A cute picture of malabar and Cat.
	The birthday girl and me.

Incidentally, whilst looking for a decent link to Sand Point, I discovered that it's a local dogging spot. The only dogs we saw while we were there were all on leads but apparently it's somewhat friskier after dark!

Then on Saturday we went up to Stroud to avoid the annual bad jazz band picnic in the park opposite our house. We just couldn't stand to hear that version of The Old Rugged Cross for the 8th year in a row (not just the same band every year but the same damn repertoire too - argghhhhh!). Unfortunately just as we were setting out it started to rain and as we drove there it started to totally tip down so we skipped the couple of ancient sites we'd planned to visit (Hetty Pegler`s Tump) and drove straight to Stroud where we ate our picnic in the car. Hey, at least malabar got to have a totally authentic British picnicking experience! We then wandered around Stroud for a bit and malabar bought some trousers but it wasn't as much fun as the day before and I started getting seriously dizzy and exhausted, which was a slight problem as I'm the only one allowed to drive the car. Still, the nice gluten-free chocolate cake in the divine Woodruffs cafe made it worth the effort.

Really though, I was shattered after driving the day before and we would have been far wiser to have cancelled the car hire when we saw what the weather was like (the jazz band was almost certainly rained off) and how tired I was before we even started. Driving home was a real struggle and I collapsed in bed the minute we got in the door.

Sunday was spent mostly resting, reading and finishing the first sleeve of the blue lace cardigan. I also had the odd experience of dreaming of someone I was at college with when I was 17. I woke up thinking of him, which led me to think about his girlfriend Catherine, who was my best friend at that time. I lost contact with her many years ago and have often wondered what happened to her. I idly googled her, expecting to find nothing as I have each time I've looked for her in the past. To my total shock I found her (in Burke's Peerage, no less!), so I now know that she's married with a five year old daughter, although I haven't been able to find any other information so far. I don't know that we'd have anything to say to each other if we met now but I'm happy to know that she's still alive and I hope she's well and happy.

As promised in my last post, here's

	This is how far I've got - I've done 3 repeats, so only another 10 to do.
	A close up of the stitches - it's not nearly as complicated as it looks, it's all just yarnovers and knit-2-togethers.

how far I've got with River, the shawl from the latest Rowan magazine. It's knit in the divine Kidsilk Haze and is actually far easier to knit than it looks. I've made a couple of mistakes, but nothing major and each time I've spotted the mistake within a row and been able to correct it.

And proving once and for all that knitting rocks - the Double Helix scarf. How I wish that I hadn't already knit malabar a scarf for last Christmas because this would be just perfect for my Science Babe. Link nabbed from brit_knits.