Thank you

A bit thank you for all the birthday wishes on here and on Facebook. I actually checked my Facebook wall yesterday for a change. I'm not very good at keeping up with Facebook.

I had a mixed birthday yesterday. There were great bits and not so good bits. The great bits were my presents:

I had this beautiful Murano cross from the girls, they bought it at a market stall down by the marina in Alicante.

I bought this beautiful Murano bracelet from the same stall.

They did necklaces too and I said to Vanessa as we walked away that perhaps I should have bought the necklace too or I'd regret it. And guess what?! I do wish I'd bought the necklace too. I'm thinking of asking my Mum who's going to Spain next week if she can buy me one.

Simon got me this fake pandora bracelet, also bought in Spain at Bijou Brigitte. Vanessa bought one too.

Simon also bought me a book and a silver photoframe.

I also got money, chocolates, sweets and some lovely toiletries. On Tuesday night I was browsing the sale at Purlescense and spent some of my birthday money on this gorgeous Namaste Hermosa Bag:

It was half price and I've had my eyes on it for a while. I would have preferred a purple or green one but only the black one was in the sale. The bag is huge, too big for a day to day handbag so it'll be used to carry my knitting and essentials when I'm going to knitting events, teaching workshops etc. Sort of like a knitting briefcase.

I've also had my eyes on Artyarns delicious but very expensive yarns for ages too. And as those were in the sale I treated myself to a skein of Silk Rhapsody which is a silk/kid mohair blend:

And beaded silk which is pure silk wiht beads:

I'm not sure what to do with them yet but they will be combined into one project.

The other good bits was a meal at Nandos and then cinema to watch 'Knight and Day' which was much better than I thought it would be.

The bad bits were the horrendous traffic jam to get into the centre of Plymouth. What normally takes 5-10 mins max, took an hour!! We then headed straight to Marks & Spencers to buy school uniforms for the girls. They had hardly any blazers left at all but we did eventually get one that looks huge on Emily but it was the best we could get, two pairs of trousers and 4 shirts for Em and 2 shirts for Ness. Why do none of the school uniform suppliers seem to cater for the older kids. Vanessa is 15 and nearly as tall as me (I'm 5ft10) and there are nothing in her size. I'll have to look online. only a year left of her wearing school uniform and I'm very relieved. The uniform shopping ended up being quite stressful.

We then headed off to pick Simon up from work and sat through another traffic jam. On the way to the cinema the traffic was still bad and the cinema car park looked packed so we found a space in a street nearby.

After our meal we headed into the cinema (which was next door) about 10-15 mins before the film was due to start and there were hardly any seats left. The girls got 2 seats together and Simon and i ended up sittting in the seats right at the front were you have to tilt your head to see the screen. Tilting my head like that really hurts my neck and it's still painful now. So although I enjoyed the film I didn't like where we were sitting. My cinema knitting project last night was the silky camel shawl

I did a couple of repeats last night and one at knitting group this morning so it's grown a little bit but not enough to take a new photo.

So a few lessons learnt after yesterday's events: 1. Do not go uniform shopping on my birthday. 2. do not head into the city centre of Plymouth after lunch on a wet summer holiday weekday. 3. get to the cinema earlier.

I've drawn a winner from yesterday's orders who will receive a £10 gift voucher. the winner is Sallly. I've e-mailed you.

I've nearly finished my current secret project. 1 1/2 repeat to go and then the border. I'm desperate to try to finish tonight but it may be difficult unless i have a very late night and i'm tired from a bad sleep last night as my neck was hurting after the cinema. So it's more likely it'll be finished tomorrow. Then I'm on to another piece of secret knitting using this gorgeous luxury yarn.

I'm not telling you what it is though but i'm looking forward to knitting with it.

The yarn I dyed the other day is nearly dry and I'll do the update tomorrow. i'll also be dyeing more yarn tomorrow. Silky Camel, Ocean Silk and Pure Silk Lace will be listed some time tomorrow.