Iknit, London, an exchange and other things

I've been back from London since Sunday evening but a combination of a bad cold, tiredness and a different job have kept me a little occupied.

When I got back on Sunday, I had a lovely exchange parcel waiting for me from Nicki. Its a Shepherds bush design called Pumpkin Hill and its beautifully finished.



My trip to London and Iknit was fantastic. The hotel I picked was about 10 minutes walk away from the Royal Horticultural halls where the Iknit day was being held. Readers in the UK might recognise the hall from some BBC channel idents from a few years ago. Its a nice and spacious venue even though I think they underestimated the catering a little. I'm not sure they thought that there would be as many attendees so the sandwiches ran out early on and there were fairly big queues for the catering generally.

Some of the charity knitting stalls



Lots of lace shawls to ooh over



Lots and lots of knitters





After a couple of hours of yarn buying, it was off to the other hall to see the Yarn Harlot, who was a fantastic speaker. It got off to a weird start with a little microphone misfunction.



And then it was on to the now traditional sock picture.



And finally the talk which lasted around 90 minutes and was followed by lots of questions. She is a great and funny speaker and I would love to hear her speak again in the future. She did say she would come back to the UK again so hopefully I will get the chance. This picture isn't the best.



It was then back to the main hall for some more shopping and chatting with fellow knitters. A combination of the Glasgow and Gourock knitters had laid claim to a table in the hall and we all popped in and out from the table to shop with breaks for chatting and eating. In a weird coincidence, someone in my group ended up in conversation with Jackie and Kate from the Crafty threads n yarns forum that I belong to and I was sitting chatting to Jackie when I realised that I knew her already from the forum and we were in an exchange together. I managed to meet up with a few people that I know though various places on the net, including the lovely Joy, who I recognised by her lovely shawl lol. I did miss quite a few people though but that was probably just as well for them as I had developed a pretty bad cold by Saturday and was gradually losing my voice through the day. Apologies to anyone at Iknit that I gave the cold to. By late in the afternoon, I was flagging badly so I decided against queuing for the Yarn harlot book signing. Stephanie was a real trooper as she signed books for several hours after her talk, which is very impressive.

Saturday night, the combined Gourock and Glasgow knitters went off for a lovely meal in a very nice restaurant somewhere in Kensington. My London geography is a little lacking but thankfully I was guided there and back by my fellow knitters.

Sunday morning, I managed to fit a little sightseeing in before my afternoon flight back. I was staying at Victoria so I decided to have a walk down towards the river. My walk took me by the Houses of Parliament



The streets were closed up for the start of the Tour of Britain so there were lots of men in shorts.





I then walked across Westminister bridge and being a little geeky, all I could think about was the first episode of the New Doctor Who series with the Doctor and Rose running across it towards the London Eye. Its an amazing sight, the London eye and the views from it must be amazing.



Opposite the Houses of Parliament, there is a small patch of Sunflowers which seem to be randomly planted at the riverside. Its a lovely contrast to the city surroundings.



All too soon, it was time for me to head back to Glasgow after a not particularly pleasant flight which the take off seem to be a little steep and the cabin pressure gave a lot of the passengers ear ache. I was really badly affected and it took several hours before it settled and a day or so before my hearing was back to normal. I had taken a decongestant before the flight but it didn't particularly help. I've only ever had some mild ear popping on a flight before so this was an unwelcome surprise which was related to the cold I have. I'm only really getting my voice back fully now.

This week I've been on my job trial this week. The job itself isn't particularly exciting but it does use a lot of the skills I've built up over the years. The people there are lovely also. Sadly there is a but coming as towards the end of the week, I noticed that my back was getting more painful than it has been. This job, whilst its not as heavy as a ward job, involves more standing and worst still, more standing on the same spot than the job I already have and my back is not coping with this. Its pretty disappointing to realise over this past weekend that its not going to work out but that's life I guess and so its back to the job hunting again. I've still got a further week of the trial to go so things might change but it seems unlikely.

Off on my travels

Straight after work tomorrow, I'm off to the airport for my flight to London. Luckily its only about 10 minutes away and hopefully the work day will not be too stressful tomorrow. I have my doubts about the lack of work stress as this week so far has been hectic. Sometimes being a ward nurse is a weird cross between Mother and shepherd when dealing with Doctors and this week has involved a lot of me running around making sure one of the doctors is doing everything he should be.

In other work related news, next week I'm off to a different hospital for a few weeks. A vacancy, which my boss thinks is suitable for me long term, has come up in a different hospital. Its in an outpatient department and it sounds like it might work out. I've been given the chance to have a no strings attached trial at the job without giving up my current post, which is rather good. So Monday is the first day of the trial. I'm a little nervous but hoping it works out.

Anyway I'm off to finish packing for London, iknit and the Yarn Harlot. Its all very exciting.

Summer's end

Its almost September which always signals the end of Summer for me and sort of the start of a new year too as its my birthday next Sunday. This year I'm spending my birthday partly in London as I'm going to the iknit show next Saturday and I will be flying back up on Sunday afternoon, hopefully after spending Sunday morning doing a little sightseeing. Its been quite a few years since I visited London other than passing through Heathrow, partly because I really can't handle the underground. I have a bit of a phobia of height but really more specifically Escalators, which the underground is full of. It doesn't matter so much this time as I've got the trip worked out so I don't have to use it and I'm staying very local to the show. The very exciting bit of this trip is that I'm going to see the Yarn Harlot speak. I really enjoy her books so it will be a thrill to hear her and there's going to be a lot of lovely yarn all in one place.

In Knitting news, I've finished another pair of socks, the 7th pair for Summer of Socks. I'm hoping that I might finish another pair but given that the deadline is Monday night, it is perhaps unlikely.

This pair are knitting in Lorna's laces shepherd sport in Georgetown. Very observant readers of my blog or Ravelry pages might note that I seem to have a thing about this shade of Lorna's laces as this is the 3rd pair I've finished in this shade and I still have more in my stash. I just love this shade.



More China pictures. As was pointed out in the comments, I was a little mistaken about the balloons, which are of course lanterns. After our mountain visit, we moved on to a local village called Buyang. Its a sort of model village place that they take tourist too but its a real village as well. We all spent a night there. Myself and one of the others (Gillian) ended up staying in the house of Director Sui, who is the village communist party chief, which was a interesting experience given that my Mandarin extends to Please, Thank you, counting to 5 and asking a taxi driver to switch on the meter in a taxi and the villagers didn't speak or understand any English. Inspite of that, we had a fabulous time and were treated so nicely. The food was amazing and we all got a bit drunk with the constant cry of Gambei (Cheers). Here's a picture of us all with our hosts.


It was then on to Qufu, Confucius's birthplace, where we visited his grave and the forest where his decendants are buried, each generation represented by stone animals, like those below.



And Confucius's grave itself. We also hired bikes, which was apparently illegal for us to do but I wouldn't have missed it for anything. We spent an hour or so cycling around the garlic fields out to a Mausoleum in the countryside and provided a lot of entertainment for hundreds of Chinese children on their way home for lunch. Apparently westerners on bicycles is the funniest thing ever lol.



The final picture today is of the next place we went - Nanjing and the Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum. The weather was very Scottish that day and made me feel quite at home.



Its time for bed here. I've received a couple of blog award things which I've gratefully for and I'll write about them next time.