Sunday, August 14, 2011

Stuff

Thank you for all the emails and messages I've had checking that I'm OK, whilst the riots were going on this country. I was really touched! It was all a bit bizarre really, as I saw all the riot footage on the news and some of my work colleagues had an unpleasant time getting home on a couple of days, but I didn't see any sign at all of any trouble. I saw a lot of the reaction to it, the upset when friends saw shops they'd used and loved for years burnt down. And the sense of unreality about what was going on.

I followed a link on Ravelry to this blog post about someone's commute to work - she walks across a fairly historic part of London to get to work, with lots of landmarks to photograph. My journey isn't quite as exciting, but these are the highlights(?). It isn't normally as quiet as this, but a lot of people are on holiday as it's August.

Cycle/footpath on the way to the station:


Walking through the town centre:


Empty seats (!) on the train. These usually fill up at the next few stations!


The station, first thing in the morning. Yawn.


Hordes of commuters at London Waterloo, waiting for the train to come in (we are such Super Commuters we know which platform it is, even before the train is announced!). Always entertaining when they change the platform at the last minute and everyone stampedes back the way they came...

 Trains racing out of Waterloo.

Hmm. That's not really very exciting at all.

More exciting was extracting my tent from the garage and putting it up in the garden to check it's OK for the festival I'm going to in a fortnight's time.

 Considering that I got it when I was 15 it's doing pretty well. Which reminds me that, now I'm of advanced years, getting an air mattress to sleep on might be a good idea. Really looking forward to going to Greenbelt. As usual, loads of great speakers I want to hear, and I seem to have volunteered for teaching knitting one evening too. I've taken a couple of days off work either side of the weekend to travel there and to sleep afterwards and do the washing (hmm, in my younger days I used to be able to stay up all night then go into work the next day no problem whatsoever. Don't think I want to try that now). I really am turning into an Old Fart.

And this is the OH's jumper. As you can see, I'm nearly there now, just one sleeve to go so I should have plenty of time to get it finished before I go to Greenbelt, as it's his birthday immediately afterwards! This has been a really enjoyable knit, nice pattern with clear instructions, and he's been able to try it on as we go because it's on circulars. And my interchangeable knitting needles have been excellent - I've been able to switch between sleeves and leave things on the cables using the end things whilst I waited to cast off until he could try it on.



I suppose I could have edited my foot out of the photo, but those are some of my sheep socks. And they're cool.

4 comments:

Victoria said...

I'm glad you didn't have trouble during all the riots. I was praying for you, just in case.

The pictures of your commute are nice. I like the footpath and the town center. :)

And the sweater looks great! I really love that color--green is my favorite color.

Megan said...

festival sounds like a lot of fun!

liz h said...

I recommend getting a foam mattress, rather than an airbed for camping. They are much more comfortable to sleep on, take hardly any puff to blow up and don't deflate in the night.

Hope you enjoy Greenbelt.

Liz
x

Mary Anne said...

That was a fun walk through your daily commute and so pleasant compared to what it could be.

I really like the colour of OH's jumper, one of my favourites.

I hope you have a most enjoyable time at Greenbelt!
x