The best of friends must part. (1385)

Well my Anna socks remain unfinished, I have been sidetracked by spinning this week. I finished off all my Wensleydale and am now spinning some lovely cherry Alpaca which I am thinking of leaving as singles to make socks with. It will depend on how energised the yarn is when it comes off the bobbin.

Other news:

On Saturday one of my friends (a fellow knitter) Marion hosted a Burns supper in aid of the RNLI. What a fantastic night it was with a few kilts and some fabulous food including a delicious haggis. Allister, Marion's husband, addressed the haggis and later Marion recited, no she performed, Tam O' Shanter. It was the best rendition of it I have ever seen, she was amazing! We had such a good time we didn't leave until 2:00 a.m. and as we staggered up the hill (did I not mention the fine whisky I was plied with!) it was snowing!

On Tuesday Carrie, Matt and Abigail headed back to the USA for an extended holiday (conference for Matt). It seems they ran into a terrible ice storm and were caught up in New York for two days before finally making it home to Lexington. I hope the weather eases a bit for them so they can visit all their friends and family safely. Looking forward to seeing them back in March!

The week continued on a high note when my lovely friend Gale emailed to say that she had been granted citizenship and was to make a flying visit back from South Africa to attend her citizenship ceremony. She arrived late Tuesday and on Wednesday morning mum picked her up from her hotel so that she could come to our Wednesday morning knitting which she used to come to every week. It was so lovely, just like old times, then the two of us went off to the ceremony. Of course it's a very solemn and sombre event so it was just typical that we got a case of the giggles before it even started. Things were made worse when they played the National Anthem on a very old tape recorder with a very abrupt finish halfway through the final line!
But it was touching and poignant too and I am of course secretly (well it's not very secret putting it in a blog is it?!) hoping that it means Gale will come back some time soon to live here permanently.

Wednesday evening a group of us went out with Gale for a meal and it was really lovely to be all together again, it was as if she had never gone. We're all hoping that once her computer arrives from Scotland she will be Skyping and blogging so that we can all keep up with her news.

Thursday night was SnB at Flava, with the twelve of us and a packed cafe it was extremely hot and loud. All of the knitting on show was fabulous but Margaret's lace shawl was simply stunning, I really have to dig mine out again and put a bit more effort into it. I am too easily diverted and keep thinking of new projects for all my lovely new yarn.

It's nearly February now and so I need to think of which sock pattern I am going to move on to next, let's hope once I have chosen it I can get the time to knit it!