Gone cycling!

I've gotten out of the habit of doing my Sunday 'Making Me Happy' blog posts for the last 2 weekends. But what made me happy this last week was cycling and having a weekend at home. Let's talk about cycling first. Last Thursday both Simon and Vanessa had a day off work. I didn't really have time to take a day off but I decided to do so anyway. The weather forecast was good although we did have a tiny bit of drizzle. We decided to go cycling on the Camel Trail, which is Cornwall's number 1 tourist attraction, apparently. It gets very busy on the weekends but week days are a bit quieter. We cycled from just outside Bodmin to Wadebridge and back, a total of 10 miles. And then had a pub lunch before we headed home.

At one point the trail goes past the final stop on the Bodmin and Wenford Steam Railway and the train was at the platform when we cycled past. In fact, the steam engine was changing from the back of the train to the front of the train so we stopped to look (it's the last stop so the train turns around to head back to Bodmin Parkway).. Below the engine had just reversed into the station at the front of the train.

Vanessa is enjoying her new bike.

On Friday I taught a class at Spin A Yarn. Here are my 7 ladies busy working on either the Daisy shawl or Mar Menor shawl, which are my 2 most popular patterns. Spin A Yarn's autumn workshop timetable is about to be sent out. The newsletters were stacked up in the kitchen when I was there on Friday. I wish I'd taken a picture of it as the number of newsletters they send out is amazing. There were thousands of envelopes ready to post. The workshop timetable is already up online. Click here and scroll to the bottom of the page and there's a diary. I'm teaching lots of classes including all my most popular ones.

Talking about workshops, last weekend I was at Sitting Knitting in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, teaching 'Design a lace shawl'. I had 12 ladies in my class and we all had a great time. Rachel has invited me back to teach in the autumn so I'll be teaching a Selbu mittens class on 2 November. Sitting Knitting is a fabolous shop. Well worth a visit if you're in the area.

Having a weekend at home was lovely as I'd been away for the previous two weekends and I'm teaching again next weekend (Toe up socks at Social Fabric in Totnes on Friday and Easy Lace at Blacker Yarns in Launceston on Saturday - there are still spaces, click on links for more details and to book).

On Saturday I had a quiet day at home. I watched a bit of Tour de France live, knitted lots of swatches and took a 2 hour nap. In the evening we went out for a meal with friends at a local pub. Here's the stack of this weekend's swatches:

On Sunday afternoon we headed up on Bodmin Moor to Davidstow airfield which is a disused World War 2 airfield and where lots of Cornwall's teenagers have their first go at driving a car. Vanessa is getting keen to learn to drive so she had a go behind the wheel and ofcourse Emily wanted to have a go too. She's old enough to learn to drive next April and Vanessa is planning to take lessons next summer so we could end up with both of them learning to drive at the same time.

Emily and I cycled around the airfield while Vanessa was driving. The runway is very uneven and full of potholes and it was very windy so it wasn't a particular pleasant experience. After the girls had both had a go at  driving, I got back in the car and continued my swatching while Simon flew a kite for a while.

Now I've got to pull those swatches together into design submissions. I've got two deadlines this morning. Look out for this week's newsletter as there'll be a special newsletter exclusive offer.

Have a lovely week x