Being There – The Trip – Part Two

No matter how unwell I feel, there are certain things that are guaranteed to make me feel better - this is one of them:

The Sea (view from hotel window)

I love water and the sea: squidging my toes in sand, paddling, jumping over or running away from waves, exploring rock pools, building sandcastles and skimming stones. I arrived, feeling ill, and even this restricted view of the sea was enough to improve how I felt!

Now although I did not find an opportunity to do the majority of things I enjoy at the seaside, I did manage to snatch a bit of time between competitions to explore a few rock pools and sneak in an ice cream - happy days! Isn’t seaweed slippery? I forget things like this, as I spend so much time walking on pavements in London.

However, here's another sight that banishes all unwell feelings:

Cows (particularly this breed - which should give away my trip location)

What can I tell you? I like cows. I have lived in the London area for years but I had an interesting upbringing which, believe it or not, included a stint living on a smallholding. We had a whole raft of animals and poultry (as you do), including some of this breed, so I have a really soft spot for them - it’s just how it is.

The trip seemed to be split into two distinct areas of activity – competing and spending time my team mates. The competitions were as glamourous as usual:

Facilities shipped in especially for the competitions (apparently)

My team consisted of 5 blokes aged between 19 - 30 plus 65 (I think) and me. In reality, this meant spending all time between competitions sitting somewhere with access to both beer and the Rugby World Cup (sorry, did I just yawn out loud)...zzzz.

So I knitted - much to their amusement. Apparently, according to the Collective Wisdom of My Team Blokes, knitting is a female form of 5e][u@1 self-service (if you catch my drift) and apparently purple, the colour that I am using (I did explain that it was actually ‘aubergine’, not purple but I just got back some very quizzical looks) is the colour associated with 5e][u@1 frustration.

So they discussed this odd hobby that I’d taken up, they discussed the colour of my project and they concluded that I was only knitting because I needed a good 5hag. As soon as they had reached this good humoured conclusion – the teasing stopped. It was almost like, as soon as they had rationalised the reason that I was knitting into something that they could identify with, they could get on with their beer and the rugby....

...I think that it helped that I was not rising to the bait either!

Edit: I would like to point out that this was all very good humoured and when we got up to leave, they were all mightily impressed with my progress, getting me to drape my shrug across my shoulders to see how far I had to go.

The weekend ended well: I knitted (photos to follow), I recovered (so ate loads of seafood) and I competed (no prize winning performances but nothing disgraceful either).

Actually, it ended so well that I even felt brave enough to test out whether my Denises were okay to have in my carry on bag on the way back (the airport was not as scary as Gatwick).

I walked through the metal detector and waited quietly for my bag. Security peered at it and...

...nothing. Hurray! All okay - it seems that 8mm Denises are not deemed to be dangerous objects. I quietly knitted a victory round on the journey home (all there was time for as the flight was so short)!

I will photograph my trip knit efforts this weekend for you to see. Actually, I am hoping that this weekend will enable me to unblock process on the wrap, post the bead images on my Puss in Boots project and burp out a couple of finished objects - fingers crossed!

Just 6 days to Alexandria Palace...

...happy days: enjoy your weekend!