Travel – The Knitting Doctor

3AM Oxford time

My brain thinks it’s prime time, not sleeping time. I decided not to fight it. Obsessing about not being able to go back to sleep definitely does not help one go back to sleep.
My travel day yesterday (yesterday? I have no idea what day it is.) was uneventful. Uneventful is terrific when it comes to international travel.

On the Seattle airport side, there was no line at check in or baggage drop. Not one person in line. There was no line at security either. My flight was delayed by an hour, so I had a long wait once I got through security. THIS is why we always pack the knitting first, people. Whilst the other travelers were fidgety and irritated, I was happily knitting away.

It was equally painless on the Heathrow side. My prior experiences at this airport have not left me with a warm fuzzy feeling about it. But there was no wait at either immigration or customs. Immigration was all automated-scan your passport, it takes your photo, and the gate opens.

My checked bag made it here, my bus to Oxford was easy to find, and showed up a few minutes after I got there. So all in all a pleasant travel day. I arrived at the Oxford bus station, which is less than a ten minute walk to where I am staying. After sitting on the plane for hours, it was nice to walk. I arrived at Rewley House just in time for our group orientation.

Here’s a photo of the Rewley center for continuing education.

The main building was a 19th century convent school. It has a dining room, commons area, and a library (which is associated with the Bodleian Library!), as well as gardens, and a nearby park. Sleeping accommodations are in several buildings around Rewley House.

Classes start later this morning. There are around 25 of us from the Graham School here for the two weeks. We’re divided into two sections: one is studying English history in the Elizabethan and Jacobean years, the other is on love in Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. I’m taking the latter class. We have discussion classes, lectures, and several tours and field trips.

And yes, I’ve already checked out whether there are yarn shops here (there are, including at the covered market within walking distance). I’m not sure I’ll have time to get any yarn shopping in, but I’ll keep you updated.

In the category of “goofy stuff”, I discovered recently that you can use photos for your Apple Watch face. Here’s one of mine.

I’m off to try to get a few more hours of sleep before the day begins.
Stay tuned!

Off on another adventure

I’m headed for two weeks of fun in Oxford, England. The Graham School has an annual program, Fortnight in Oxford. This year it’s a Shakespeare-focused theme. We’ll have classes, tours, a trip to Stratford on Avon for a Shakespeare play, along with other fun adventures. I have knitting packed, my kindle loaded with Shakespeare plays, and a bit of room for some souvenirs.

John is staying here, so don’t even think about raiding my yarn stash while I’m away.

Yes, there was yarn

Our excursion Sunday was to a nearby village that was the site of a small knitting factory that opened in the 19th century. The factory unfortunately closed in 1989, but it has been converted into a museum, keeping most of the old spinning and knitting machinery in working order. The original factory primarily made machine-knit (and hand-finished) clothing, especially woolen long underwear.

That is just some of the old equipment on display.

That is a bin of single ply thread ready to be made into either cloth for garments, or finished yarn for knitting.

The museum shop was lovely, with a nice collection of knit items, books, and other souvenirs. You know I was there for the yarn, right?

Some of that did come home with me.

That little guy didn’t end up in my shopping bag, though he sure is cute.

The week that was

Or, Out of Covid Jail

After John tested positive on Sunday, I did the same on Monday. We were restricted to our cabin for 5 days each, so John was out yesterday, me this morning. I felt pretty lousy for a couple of days, but have no symptoms now other than reduced sense of smell.
We missed four ports in Norway, though did get a few photos from our veranda. The prettiest day so far was Geirangar fjord, which was spectacular, with many stunning waterfalls.

Our cabin attendant, Mohammed, took good care of us for the week. He made sure our window and veranda wall were kept clean so we had a good view at all times.

We arrived in Bergen yesterday, and today is the midpoint of the cruise. Many passengers are staying on for the full trip to Stockholm, though there is also a lot of turnover from people only doing the two week portions. We did a tour in Bergen today, here’s one of the highlights.

Some fine Norwegian wool, and a sheep-themed bag to put it in.

And I finished a pair of socks.

The wool is from deep stash, Elliebelly 100% BFL. Same old pattern. These are for me.

Stay tuned for more adventure now that we are able to explore!

Quarantine

The view from our veranda on the Viking Mars:

And that’s likely all we will see of Norway for the next five days.

John had a scratchy throat yesterday so we retested. He popped up positive. I didn’t, but have the same symptoms this morning. We are waiting on PCR confirmation, but we’re in quarantine. Neither of us feels very sick, which is good. The ship staff couldn’t be any better. We are able to order food from the main dining room menus, as well as from the specialty restaurants. They are crediting us for any shore excursions that we will miss.

And of course, I have enough knitting and reading material so I can’t possibly run out of things to do.

Speaking of knitting, I did manage to find some yarn. This was from Orkney island, the guide on the tour we took was a knitter and gave me directions to a little shop selling yarn.

Who knows what that all will be, but it is awfully pretty.

That’s all for now!

Cruise knitting

We are having a blast so far. Our wifi is a bit spotty, so this will be short. We have a tour this afternoon of Orkney Island. I hear there may be wool shopping opportunities there.

The project up there is a simple garter shawl; no pattern, just garter stitch with increases to make a triangle shawl. I’ll change colors when each yarn runs out. The wool is Icelandic light fingering, dyed with various plants. As we’ll end our trip with a few days in Iceland, I thought it was appropriate.

Stay tuned to see if I find any wool!

Great big fun

I had a little out of town trip over the weekend. My great-niece Elise graduated from high school in Sacramento, and I flew down to join the festivities. Fun was had by all. Here are a few photos.

There weren’t a lot of masks in evidence, either on the airplanes, or in Sacramento. I’ve only been home for two days, but so far I’m testing negative for Covid. We have a big trip coming up in late June, so from here on out John and I will be trying to isolate as much as possible. This is my retirement trip that got postponed from last summer due to Covid, so I’m going to be really pissed off if it gets canceled again. More on that in a future post.

I have all the pieces for my newest sweater finished and blocked. I started seaming things together last night. I have one sleeve in, and am sewing up the side seam. Once it’s put together, there is a wide band that goes up and around the fronts, I suppose that will take forever, but I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the sweater tunnel. I might even have this finished to take on our trip. here’s a photo.

Those clip things to hold pieces together for seaming are one of the great knitting-world inventions. I tossed the packaging long ago, so have no idea of the brand or where I got them, but they really do make lining things up much easier.

I’m off to do more sewing! I do have a great big finished project to show you, but it is a surprise, so it needs to be gifted first.

Aftermath

Vacation is loads of fun. We just got off an 11 day cruise in the Eastern Caribbean. We went on Viking, which was our first (but not last) trip with them. I mostly posted on FB while we were gone. Although our shipboard wifi was included, it tended to be slow, especially once everyone was on board and using their devices, so I didn’t even try to do a blog post. The trip out and back was uneventful, and we had a great time, and a much needed sun break.

Despite the fun and sun, it’s really nice to be home. I got to sleep in my own bed last night, and had a cup of tea in my own kitchen this morning. The pets were all very happy to see us. We are fortunate to have found a lovely housesitter who takes good care of them and our home, but they missed us and we missed them.

We didn’t buy much on the trip. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a single yarn shop to be found. Most of the shops at the ports are wearyingly the same, generally overpriced junk. I did find some nice handmade silk screened place mats on St. Lucia.

Those will be lovely on our patio table in the summer.

And we had to buy a bottle of banana ketchup, and some hot sauce. The locals swear that the banana ketchup is wonderful.

And a little collection of photos from the trip.

On to that mountain of laundry.

Sistine Chapel

We leave Rome today, headed to Florence. The highlight yesterday was an evening tour of the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel. There were 22 of us, plus our two guides and the Swiss guard that escorted us. We were the only people there, which was magnificent.

We saw an exhibition at home recently of many of the panels from the ceiling, but the real thing, all on one ceiling, was breathtaking. Being able to see it at night, without the crowds, left me speechless.

Not sure what the rest of the trip holds, but It doesn’t really matter after that.

Ladybug Socks! Mexico!

We are back in our favorite place in Mexico again for a week. So far the weather has been perfect, and we’ve had a terrific relaxing time. I finished my latest socks this morning.

I’m not doing the whole “Finished Project” thing. It’s Opal yarn, the Ladybug color, from deep stash. Knit on size 2 mm needles, usual plain vanilla sock with ribbed cuff. I keep forgetting that Opal has very generous yardage, I could have knit the cuffs quite a bit longer.

Here are a few photos from our trip so far. We came this year with neighbors from home.

You can probably see why we keep coming back here!

Mind the Gap!

We have had a fun couple of days in London for the start of our England vacation. John got off the plane feeling under the weather on Friday and Saturday right after we got here, so Saturday I was on my own. I walked pretty much the entire Kensington Garden park, which is right across the street where we are staying. And I found a yarn shop.

Loop London is on a tiny walking-only street with a bunch of other little shops. It’s not a big shop, but it has some mighty fine yarn choices. Here’s what I came away with.

There are two skeins of lace yarn from Eden Cottage, and two Wollmeise Pure wool yarn. The first two will be shawls someday, the last two will likely be small “neck things”, which I am growing quite fond of.

John is all better now, and we’ve spent our time being tourists, and doing a lot of walking. We’ve got the tube system sorted, at least for our little local neighborhood, and buses and taxis will get us everywhere else.

Here are a few other photos:

Every single tourist here takes their photo in front of one of the iconic London telephone booths.

Even better with Big Ben in the background.

There are lots of fine pubs.

We had a tour of St. Paul Cathedral today. What a remarkable place. We got there just before their midday Eucharist service, so I was privileged to attend that.

You hear “Mind the gap” about every few minutes while riding the Tube. I suspect if you are a Londoner, you don’t find it quite so amusing.

And this last photo is your medical public service reminder for the day. If you haven’t gotten your flu jab yet, please do so!

Tomorrow we take the train to Canterbury for another adventure!

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Souvenirs

After a long travel day Friday, we’re back home from our cruise. Getting through Seattle traffic back home was the worst part of the trip. We got off the ship around 9:30, and didn’t get home until around 5PM (usually about a 4 hour drive). We stopped in Bellingham for lunch, which accounts for part of that, and also picked up Lewey, which was a bit of a detour, but the whole trip back was just painful. Traffic around here is painful at best, and on Friday afternoon turns into horrifying.

I did stop at one yarn shop in Bellingham, but I swear I didn’t buy anything. I wasn’t really even tempted. Next week I’ll hit 150 days with no yarn buying, and the six month mark is coming up.

We didn’t do any significant shopping on the trip. I bought a few books in a shop in San Francisco. How can you NOT buy books in a nice bricks and mortar book shop with real people running it? Of course, I don’t need those any more than I need more yarn. It’s those little personal recommendation cards written by the book shop staff that get me every time. And yes, I have a Kindle, and use it, but there is something about “real” books that I adore.

Here are the other things I bought. We did a tour of the Queen Mary in LA, which was a bit cheesy, but fun.

A Queen Mary tea mug, and Queen coasters!

And what is that little blue thing peeking out in that photo? Could it be a finished Hitchhiker?

Why, yes!

Project Details

Pattern: Hitchhiker, by Martina Behm

Yarn: Wollmeise Pure, color Bluebell

Needles: 3.25 mm Knit Picks Harmony

For: Me

Started/Finished: Started 2/16/16 Finished 4/20/17. Yes, I know that’s ridiculous. It was in time out for months.

Modifications: None

What I Learned: I am likely the last person ever to have made one of these. As of right now, there are 26,921 projects listed on Ravelry. I can see why. This is a great pattern for fingering weight sock yarns, and it’s very easy.

I also learned that my drug dealers scale doesn’t work on a rocking and rolling cruise ship. I was trying to use as much of the yarn as I could, but my scale wouldn’t give me a readout so I just guessed at how much yarn I needed for the bind off. I thought it might be dying on me, but when I got it home and tested on a solid surface, it works just fine. As it turned out, I could have knit a few more repeats, but it’s long enough.

Pattern Rating: ***** This is a well written pattern, no errors, and very easy to follow. I will definitely make more of these, since it’s not like I don’t have any sock yarn hanging about here.

You aren’t getting an action photo with me wearing this for now. The other fun souvenir that I brought home was a wicked upper respiratory infection. I’ve been sick for the past 4-5 days, and I look (and feel) like something that a grizzly bear dragged around the back yard a few times. I’m just hoping this is better tomorrow, since I’m supposed to be back at work. I’m one of those people that tries to drag myself to work even if I don’t feel good, but if it’s something infectious like this, not so much. All my little old people patients really don’t need to catch this. It sort of figures that I’d make it through our horrendous cold and flu winter season and then get this in April on a cruise.

Sigh. I’m off to make a cup of tea for that pretty mug up there.

Muir Woods

We landed at our last stop yesterday afternoon, San Francisco. Yesterday we walked around and played tourist in town, and had dinner out. Today we took a tour to Muir Woods and Sausalito. Muir Woods might be my favorite thing about the whole trip. Even with all the other tourists, it was a very peaceful place.

Of course, the sock got in the act.

We leave here in an hour or so, and have two lovely sea days headed back home. We won’t have internet access, so I’ll see you on the flip side!

Cruising

John and I signed up for a Princess cruise several months ago. This one leaves and arrives back at Vancouver, so we were able to drive up instead of flying, which made it a bit more economical.

It also had the attraction of four and a half sea days, which as you all know, means four and a half KNITTING days. I was very excited to see “Knitters and Natters Get-Together” on the daily program. There are a half dozen or so crafters on board, mostly knitters. We’ve been meeting every sea day morning and having a great time.

Our ports of call so far have been Long Beach, Catalina Island, and Santa Barbara. My favorite has been Santa Barbara. Catalina is lovely, but I’d been there once before so knew what to expect. Santa Barbara is a gorgeous city with miles of beach front. We were lucky enough to have a sunny day yesterday and took a trolley tour of the city.

We land in San Francisco this afternoon, and will be here all day tomorrow as well, then two more of those lovely sea days to get us home again.

I apparently am knitting all blue things. The projects that Sweetpea is helping me with up there are my Hitchhiker, which I may finish one of these years, my new lace shawl, and a pair of socks for John. I finished the first one earlier on the cruise and am well into the second one. I have a spare ball of Opal sock yarn “just in case”, but that’s likely optimistic. I also brought two spindles with me.

Here’s a photo from our day in Santa Barbara.