Long long long

Having the internet at home the way it is is turning out to be almost worse than not having it at all. It keeps freezing and stopping so poor Pooch is going to be having yet more conversations with the call centres of the world.

Anyway, let's wrap up paris and then move on.

I was quite astonished at Phildar who I haven't had anything to do with before. From the outside it looks like a normal clothes shop

But on the inside (as well as the clothes) it was packed with yummy stuff and all the latest Phildar magazines.

Did I manage to buy anything? Well..... you know me. Just one or two things. From top left clockwise...

Two colours of lovely 50% wool. There were single colours as well but I just loved the red/green/purple one and this is a dream to knit with. Doesn't feel acrylicy at all and gives lovely even stitch definition. The lettuce looking one is actually called 'clapotis' and appears to be made out of j-cloth. Not my usual fair but with a name like that I kind of had to. Plus none of these were more than about 4 euros (and the nice 50%wool was 2.80). Bottom right is another possible kid silk haze contender. The leery green in the middle is quite a tight, thin boucle that I thought might be nice plied with something and then bottom left is a chunky i-cord type thing a little bit felted which I basically bought to dye. Is this is? Oh, no I don't think so....

Top left is a novelty thing that either creates lacy madness by itself or looks good used with another yarn as an accent. On the right are two colours of plied wool/acrylic that I just liked the look of and then bottom left is a mohair in a wicked pink colour. The woman in the shop was very nice and very patient with my french. I also got three pattern books which have a number of lovely things in. I hadn't seen Phildar in the UK so I asked the UKHK list where one gets such stuff and there is a place called strands in scotland that has it but where the euro prices just have a pound sign put in front or there is another one in france with cost postage prices and the same cheaper prices so I might use that one. I would like a jumper in that red/green/purple one.

I did pretty well for wool shops. There was another one I would have visited near the hotel which sold this stuff...

I haven't seen it before and couldn't see the price. I would have gone in and bought some to try but the place was never open. Ah well, reckon I still did pretty well!

Knitting seems to be as popular in france as it is dans angleterre. My eagle ears caught the word 'tricot' one morning while Pooch was flicking through the TV channels and lo and behold....

Yes, a news item on a knitting group. They reminded me of the lovely golders green possy who I am missing mightily at the moment after a two week absence. And why two weeks? Well because on the final morning at about 3am I woke up from a nightmare with the *worst* food poisoning ever. I don't want to go into details but I needed to get from the hotel to the gare du nord and then onto the eurostar and then from waterloo to home and combined that was probably the hardest journey I have ever undertaken. The actually nastiness stopped late Thursday but I am still not completely recovered. One of the most annoying things has been me suddenly running out of energy which meant I missed the big handover last week or Liz's wedding blanket. You see the golders green posse all did 2 12 inch squares and we sewed them all together and hemmed it in crochet and it looked wicked bad and the handover was last wednesday. And I missed it! Will try and get a photo of the finished thing from one of the others as it really is very lovely.

I have managed to finish several pairs of socks recently but not when I have a camera around. I have also just the tassles to add to a cobnut scarf for my friend Alex that I've done with two strands of cashmerino from coldspring. Took 4 balls all together. Just started another curly whirly yesterday in cherry tree hill peacock for my best mate Louise for xmas. Again, no actual pictures. Plus I have a *huge* pile of magazines and pattern books to sell on ebay, as well as a load of lovely stitch markers except I can't get the internet reliable enough to list them. If anyone can recommend a free listing programme for macs that would be much appreciated.

Woke up this morning convinced it was Tuesday - weird - so had a rather unnecessarily sudden start to the day as I then leapt out of bed. Joe, Ellie and Denning are coming round for lunch today so Pooch is deep into his Ric Stein cookbook (it was our anniversary - 18 months - last week so got him a little present) and is threatening 'roast cheese'.

So I think to wrap up I just have to have the same rant here that I've already had on UKHK - my secret pal is rubbish. Not the one giving to me - she is a definite dude. The one I'm sending to. Unanswered emails, unacknowledged parcels, blog last updated 3rd October. Have decided to give her til the end of next week to respond to the last parcel then will send her the 'balance' in john lewis vouchers and not bother with it anymore. So off-putting as I really enjoy the spoiling-others part. Pooch has suggested the two of us have a secret pal of our own with the same guidelines regarding spending and postal delivery (except to work addresses). I think it might be quite sweet and I'm not going to join the next SP after recent experiences.

Wow - long post. Sorry guys. Have another busy week coming up - mentoring in birmingham on wednesday, hair makeover (oh yes there will be pics) in....weston-super-mare (obviously) on Thurs and then I am at a conference friday/saturday at lovely Ashridge business school. I'll be sure to check in though and hopefully have some pictures of these FOs to share!