Spring flowers and other things

On Saturday I did something I've been planning to do for about six months - it was supposed to happen on my 40th birthday, but it just didn't work out, so my partner in crime - ex-schoolmate Lisa - came to stay for the weekend with the purpose of fulfilling the original plans. The Tate Modern has a series of huge slides in the main turbine hall at the moment - an installation by Carsten Holler - which visitors can ride on for free. Lisa and I had a fantastic morning there - the anticipation, the whole build-up, and the exhilaration of the ride itself. We sampled three slides, from smallest to tallest, and all were pure experience.




Sunday, the mo'ah did its first stint - accompanying me out of London for a few hours to see the spring flowers (and slightly early April showers too, although thankfully not till I was nearly back at the car!). I drove to the beautiful Knole House then walked through the park, and all the way to Ightham Mote a few miles away. Spring flowers such as anemones, violets, primroses, blackthorn and wild strawberries were strewn all along the sheltered ridge I was following, and the views across the Weald of Kent were astonishing. It was worth the year's car insurance just for this! Made a mental note to return in a few weeks for the same walk; the bluebells will be spectacular judging by the leaves that were emerging.




Now knitting news. Here is the Curse's jumper. You can see that it's starting to look like your actual garment, but the detail at the bottom shows the bit that's driving me mad. How to fit almost 80 stitches into the space left by binding off four. Well it's not the fitting them in that's the difficult bit, it's the knitting and purling them when they are all crushed up together like that! I'm consoling myself with the fact that every other row I'm losing two stitches to the decreasing, so eventually it will all get easier (if the stretching doesn't give way to ripping...!).

A small contingent of the Meantime Knitters headed up to the Phoenix pub on Sunday evening to sample the IKnit club night, courtesy of Gerald and Craig at I Knit London. The cakes were divine, the music very retro and we made some new knitting friends from Plumstead. Hello Roy and Jon!