Philadelphia here I come...

Pooch and I went out to spend a few hours romantically sharing...the trocadero at piccadilly circus. For non-initiates this lovers-lane-of-london is full of teens playing that game where you have to jump on the dancepad in a specified way that culminates in you having the visual equivalent of an epileptic fit to music. There are also loads of slot machines and racing games etc etc. Pooch truly lost himself in the star wars game - I have never seen him so intent - while I excelled at the bash'em game where you have to hit rodents with a mallet as they pop-up. Pooch professed himself to be slightly concerned about my level of concentration as I played two rounds of this game. It's true - I feel at home with a mallet in my hand.

We also had dim sum (Mmmmmmmmmmmm) and as a result of my winning the obviously-chelsea-are-going-to-win-the-cup £5 bet I got some chinese sweets in one of the little supermarkets in chinatown.

Aren't they lovely? The shop itself was a visual wonderland that I feel Yarnstorm, Nickerjac and others would have adored. There is the downside that you basically have no idea what you're getting unless you recognise the pictures but what the hell, it adds an element of danger to life!

Speaking of danger does anyone else actually quite like it when your plane hits turbulence? I always end up thinking to myself that it's a reminder that I'm alive and that life is a finite thing. There you are right up there in the sky and nature is chucking you about a bit and having a laugh. But then I've never had it really bad - like when you just suddenly drop. Because planes are occupying my mind a great deal at the moment because I have a 9.5 hour (plus waiting times at heathrow) flight to do tomorrow. My MBA has begun so I have to do some of that but otherwise there is knitting and reading and hopefully snoozing. But then I need to work out whether snoozing is actually a good thig or whether I should stay awake. Considering the average weekend sees me taking a respectable number of naps I don't expect to do the whole thing awake but then I may end up with the tweenie from hell sitting next to me so who knows.

My shopping list for Philly includes
> susan bates crochet hooks
> red heart/lion brand type cheap and fun stuff for the floor cushion
> cotton based sock yarn
> lots of things for others, including baby lotion and eye drops. Weird? Yes.
But most of all I am looking forward to having a proper pretzel. Can you believe the ones in pret are actually.....b.a.k.e.d? It's a travesty. I have an offer from Tom, my trusty consultant, to show me around and I think contrary to my norm I will take him up on one of the days at the weekend. Normally i would keep very much to myself and then end up hiding away in my room in the evenings. But this time I have a cocktail party on the wed, dinner with the dinosaurs in their natural history museum on the thursday and so why not keep busy with other stuff the rest of the time?

Speaking of sock yarn (some time ago admittedly) I went pretty OTT on the knitting yesterday - largely because Pooch and I sat down to The Godfather so I had three hours to occupy my hands. This is the second of the curious yarn hanks Pooch bought me a few months back. It is one of the two skein ones that they seem to have stopped doing and this may be a good thing as they gave me this sea green to go with it and after a few rows I had to stop. Yuk. However, now I've ditched the small skein and am happy once more. I'm using 2.75mm but think I could have done 3.25 quite easily as it's knitting up pretty tight.

Don't ask em why I'm knitting it up so tight. I just am.

In other news did you see Crazy Aunt Purl met a guy and then he totally did the dirty and stopped calling? What an arse. CAP is the coolest dude and I now hate this man for being mean. At least she's getting the creeps out of the way early though so she must be getting to the point where there are only nice boys left (but not tooooo nice ;) )

My final act is to draw your attention to the weather forecast for Philly - bright sun and 22-26 degrees. Yeah baby. I'll be away for a week so see you on the other side xx