Visitors

If you've watched/listened to the news today, it won't have escaped your notice that the Indian prime minister is in town.  And if you tried to get through the Westminster area, you'd have been sent off in all sorts of odd directions; all roads closed all day.  This surprised my colleague and me; we needed to get to the building in the middle to retrieve our visitor, the guy delivering a training course to our colleagues, and take him to lunch.  There wasn't nearly as much fuss when the Chinese premier came last month.  But it was so wonderful how quiet the whole area was without traffic.

I gather there were protesters up on Whitehall, but we couldn't get up that far; on the way back, we did see the small welcoming committee, with their lovely crocheted banner, chatting away to the police on a warm, sunny afternoon.

View from the bus stop

Sometimes it's easy to get blasé about working in central London.  Recently, I've been doing a mystery knitalong which is shaping up very nicely

and as it's London-themed, I've been taking the odd photo here and there to get people into the mood. Last month, I was waiting for a bus to take me to book group, and realised that my new bus stop (we moved offices in August) isn't at all in a bad location.

From left, the London Eye, the Elizabeth Tower/Big Ben; St Margaret's Church, Westminster Abbey, Church House and the Business, Innovation and Skills Department...

Not bad, really!

NaBloPoMo day 7: London gloaming

I was going to talk about last night's wonderful Waterstones event in the second half of the book theme, but I'll do that tomorrow.  For tonight, just a couple of London photos.

I always try to get the 11 bus from Westminster to Liverpool Street on a Friday night - the 1645 train out of King's Cross is the Train from Hell and only gets worse after Cambridge, and the 1707 from Liverpool Street is infinitely more civilised; in addition, the multiple M&S branches in Liverpool Street and the Huge Boots Branch are all very useful.

I was on one of the new Routemasters; they're... interesting. Love the return to being able to get on and off at the back; but they do look a little bit as if they've been designed by an alien Duplo-based lifeform.  Here, there's a 24 in front of us in the same design.

The bus wasn't meant to be the focus of the picture; Nelson had a particularly Turneresque sky to set him off this evening, as the sun set.

And then we headed along the Strand towards Fleet Street (the two streets are divided by a dragon in the middle of the road. As you do.)

The building on the left is the Royal Courts of Justice, another wonderfully bonkers Victorian Gothic edifice.  With the light, it all looked a little bit like fairyland.  In another couple of weeks it'll be dark while I'm doing this journey, so making the most of it while I can.

Another reason to be cheerful was having lunch with an old friend who was in the area; and is likely to be in the area a lot more from now on because of a new job.   So while I was shattered this morning, and am still behind with absolutely everything, I'm heading into the weekend in an unusually positive frame of mind. About to try and get chores done now to start the weekend well...

NaBloPoMo day 5: London compensations

I grumble a lot about the commute down to London.  I like to think I have justification for that - paying nearly 20% of my salary for a lousy service is less than fun.  But working in London can have its compensations.

Like the view from this meeting in April - took me so long to work out how to get the photo off my camera, which was only a week old at the time, that I never posted it.  We were in the Financial Times building next to Southwark Bridge.



Here's the other half of the view, with added St Paul's and window reflection.



Today I went to City University's campus near Angel for the first time; and managed to forget any means of taking photos.  Including my mobile.  Given that the meeting was called Knowledge Organisation Goes Mobile, the irony was not lost on me.  The first chance I've had for Tweeting smugly about a meeting I was in, and I blew it.  And many of the lovely apps we were shown only work for iPhone too...  But it's a lovely set of buildings, and a nice walk down from Angel.  And my (very tasty, if strangely "fusion") food took too long to arrive at lunchtime, so the pub gave me a full (completely unasked-for) refund!

On the way home, caught the end of the new monthly artisan food market at King's Cross; picked up turkey pierogi, spicy kabanos, chicken bistilla (tonight's dinner and very delicious) and a Monmouthshire veal, lemon and thyme dried sausage, and headed for the train.  Which was, just for a change, on time...  Good day.

Towers in the snow

I ended up leaving work at 2pm this afternoon - the trains were slowly starting to get a little more dodgy-sounding, the snow had been coming down for 5 hours, and people living near home and halfway up the line were saying they had reasonable quantities of the stuff... and I was completely unable to concentrate on what I was meant to be doing...

It's been so long since I left for the day in the light!  And apart from that, I thought I'd take a couple of pictures of work in the snow... this is the little camera, but probably just as well - it was so slippery underfoot I'd have been worried about getting the big camera out.

First, here's the classic: the Elizabeth Tower, formerly the Clock Tower (as we're instructed to say at every turn, Big Ben is the name of the bell which tolls the hours); the tower was designed by Charles Barry and opened in 1858, and the bell was completed in 1859.

At the other end of the Palace, a marginally younger and somewhat larger structure - the Victoria Tower, also by Barry, opened in 1860 and housing the Parliamentary Archive.

The buildings at the other end of the London part of my journey home are also Victorian with clocks; first of all St Pancras (or, more properly, the Grand Midland Hotel which was added to the engine shed later), opened in 1873 and designed by George Gilbert Scott; more Gothic, this time in brick.  Gorgeous structure, and one narrowly saved by campaigners including Sir John Betjeman;  the station pub is named in his honour.

And one which is about to cast off its horrible 1972 concourse and show itself in its rather stark beauty; King's Cross station.  Surprisingly to me, this is the oldest of the four; designed by Lewis Cubitt and opened in 1852.  Network Rail's grand plans for this one should be complete at the end of this year; I think it's going to look splendid.

Looking at all these structures brings home to me how recent the current London landscape really is in comparison to, say, Cambridge's, and quite how much building work was being done in the 1850s and 1860s...  It's not surprising London is a real and vibrant character in Dickens's novels...

In memoriam

In Flanders fields the poppies grow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe; 

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, through poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

John McRae (d. 1918), In Flanders fields

I work right next to the Cenotaph; it's always a moving sight shortly after Remembrance Sunday, and at all times of year it's a daily reminder of the sacrifice of past and present generations.

This year is the first since I've lived here when there hasn't been some sort of military sign of remembrance in the village, as the Royal Engineers have moved out - some just up the road, some all the way to RAF Kinloss in the north of Scotland.

It's been the sort of glorious English autumn day here that I imagine people far from home fighting would have had in their mind's eye; and I see from the photos it was the same in London.

(And I wish Remembrance day was at the top of the news sites today where it belongs, rather than the BBC examining its navel in extended news bulletins.)

G is for... Gothenburg; or Knit Nation Part the First

So... it's been a while since I posted anything but book reviews. Which is not to say knitting, travelling, spinning, working, etc. etc. hasn't happened; but somehow there just hasn't been time to note anything down.

However; after the recent trouble and violence in London, I thought I'd bring you some of the wonderful London weekend which was Knit Nation 2011. For me, the weekend started on the Thursday evening, with a trip to the National Portrait Gallery, a meal at Rossopomodoro and most importantly a chance to introduce two friends, who previously knew each other online but hadn't met. Franklin and Gavin are both knitters and leading lights of the Archers group on Ravelry. (That's a packet of Duchy Originals shortbread with them; you had to be listening to the Archers in January or February, otherwise it's a long and pointless story)...

After an even earlier start than usual on the Friday morning, I got to the reception desk with SarahAbroad and signed up for all my classes. All very smooth and efficient - thanks, Jaq!

The first full-day class was the Gothenburg connection - Bohus Stickning, with Susanna Hansson who was a superb teacher. Bohuslan, the area where the knitting was done, is north of Gothenburg. What I liked was that the focus was very much on the social justice element of the Bohus project, and also the emphasis that this is not folk knitting, but a completely new style of couture knitting which was intended to compete with the likes of Ralph Lauren and Nina Ricci in the post-war period. Garments commanded very high prices, and knitters were paid enough that in some families, the balance of financial power was shifted from the man to the woman of the household which caused some contention.

Meanwhile, while listening and looking at slides, we started knitting wristlets in the Blue Shimmer pattern. The yarn is lovely to work with - you could really feel the angora content and it was incredibly warm.

In the second half of the day, Susannah spread out the wonderful collection of Bohus garments she'd brought with her, and we all looked, touched (with gloves, of course!) and photographed. What I love is both the colour combinations, and the way these interact with the texture in Bohus (which includes purl stitches on the front of the work, unusual for colourwork), and the gently felting angora content, to produce a wonderful blur of colour...

Susannah explained the construction (no steeks, seamed, cardigans worked back and forth in 20th century style, not the traditional cut-and-edge style in Fair Isle knitting, small couture-type buttons).

We had a show and tell at the end - lots of wristlets. Mine are destined to become the cuffs for a pair of gloves, probably fingerless. One was completed later that day, the other is underway again after a bit of a break for other projects!

One of the best things about the charity Bingo night on the Saturday is that one of my classmates won a fabulous Bohus kit, which was a fabulous coincidence given the numbers of people playing on the evening - congratulations, Elaine!!

More from Knit Nation, Fibre-East and another event soon - I'm on holiday this week so may have more time to sort out photos...

Meeting Across the River

Weirdly, as I walked over the Golden Jubilee Walkways from the north to the south bank of the Thames, this song came on the iPod. Seemed very appropriate

It was a grim day, which looked like midwinter...

But I was heading to the Royal Festival Hall for lunch, drinks and knitting with a friend. Anyone who knows this particular friend will probably work out who it was by this photo...

Yes, it was indeed Yvonne (aka Stash on Ravelry); accessorising her purple cast with her beautiful new purple Louët yarn, and making an experimental foray into the centre of town since her unfortunate altercation with an unfriendly kerb.

And this was the view we had to gaze out on - or at least, part of the view. This bit wasn't entirely populated by people earnestly tapping on their MacBooks (or whatever those Mac laptops are called)...

The people-watching was excellent though - we didn't see anyone we could positively identify, but there were definitely Telly People arranging interviews and so on...

And on the way out, there was an exhibition of art made by young offenders, which was really interesting. This one was definitely one for Sparkleduck though!

Another really good day; despite being wet for quite as much of it!! I also knitted an Entire Item in the course of the day, but more of that later.

Deep and crisp and drifty

This is the view from outside an hour ago. Now, I know there are people from more wintery climes who regularly read this blog and will be laughing heartily at the pathetic picture this paints (although do click to embiggen the wonderful cross-hatching the wind is creating). But at least one of them has spent serious time in this country, and realises Quite How Much Havoc this will generate. This photo was taken at the point the BBC thinks we're getting "light snow" and 3 hours before we are due to hit "heavy snow". And it's seriously blustery out there...

I'm hoping that it will all get Definitive before I have to leave for work - on the announced-on-the-radio "there are no trains leaving East Anglia" scale of Definitive; rather than my having to plod down to the station to find that there might be a train in 23 minutes and then there isn't but the screens go blank and I stand there for ages and then have to come home anyway... In that case, I already have official sanction to come back home and start on the mountain of stuff I've forwarded to myself... I'd much rather wake up, find out it's impossible to get anywhere and do some decent work, preferably in my pyjamas.

On a completely separate tack, I went to the Poetry Library today for work-related reasons, and met some really nice people. After we'd finished the main part of the meeting we heard about their Lost Quotations service. If you can help, or comment, do!

On the way back from the Poetry library, a pigeon crapped on my hat. I was so utterly and totally affronted by this that it took me several minutes to realise that if I hadn't been wearing a hat, I'd have been dealing with pigeon-poop in my hair. And also made me realise I hadn't blogged the hat yet. Another day.

The day ended better than it started - having looked up the large number of cancelled trains this morning just before setting off for the station, I was somewhat aggrieved to find mine had joined them only 12 minutes later... Presumably the people who update the website don't get up as early as the people intending to travel on the trains... And of course it was raining...

However, I made an excursion to Muji at lunchtime (ostensibly for pens for Wibbo, who's exiled out of Mujiland) and the sun was shining, and after a reasonably productive day at work, I met a friend for dinner (the Papaya Tree on Kensington High Street; I'd recommend it for food and service; apparently, so would Michael Winner; but you can't have it all...) and the train home worked, albeit with only half the number of carriages.

Checking blogs when I got back, funniest LOLcats for a long while, if you've ever had one of those cats who's permanently on the wrong side of a closed door...

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I Knit Weekender

I spent Friday and Saturday at the I Knit Weekender, and I had a marvellous time. After a stress-free journey down, so unlike last year, first up at the Royal Horticultural Halls was a presentation from Debbie New, author of Unexpected knitting. She was interesting and warm and funny, had some great slides of her projects and techniques, and was unfazed by questions being fired at her from the audience. Here she is knitting a complicated knot before the presentation started.

And here are some of the samples she brought. This little sweater was something I hadn't really noticed in the book, but was the most exquisite thing seen close up.

And one thing I'd not really taken account of was the amount of warm colour in her projects - you tend to think of techniques rather than colour, but the colour combinations were wonderful.

She'd also brought one of the "some assembly required" puzzle sweaters - you can see it as a long strip trailing off the first photo, and here it is after two keen volunteers from the audience had assembled it on the floor...

It was lovely to meet someone who's been a bit of a hero for a long time...

There were fashion shows - I only caught the very beginning of the Biggan show because I went to sit on the KCG stand for a bit of the afternoon.

Gill had some of my yarn on the stand - they do say everyone has her price...

And here's the full Woolly Workshop stand complete with Gill - fabulous colours, as ever. Mini Mochi seemed to be the best-seller but the Manos was hopping off the stand as well...

Opposite was Rockpool Candy with their Fibre Activism.

An overview of the beautiful halls. When I took this I didn't realise I had Jeni from Fyberspates in the shot - she's the tall blonde lady in the black.

The I Knit stand (and lots of knitters including Skein and Jill)

View from the top of the steps just before the fashion show.

Crocheted blankets on the Natural Dye Studio's stall - beautiful faded antique colours...

Herdy had all sorts of good ideas including the Herdybank and some lovely mugs.

And John Arbon/Coldharbour Mill had some fountains of beautiful fibres. Some of the 70% alpaca/30% merino at the back begged to come home with me so I let it.

After presentations, shopping and volunteering it was Wine O'Clock.

Jackier knitted faster than the camera could cope with

while roseanglaise, still justifiably chuffed by her recent honour from the Oil Pastel Society, found a novel use for a Harmony DPN.

After some dinner with Gill, I went back to Wigram House where I was staying for the princely sum of £28.50 plus booking fee - it's clean, quiet after midnight, incredibly central but in a residential street and very efficiently run. I'd certainly use it again - highly recommended.

On the Saturday morning I did a class with Alice Starmore. I'd signed up partly out of curiosity - she does have something of a reputation both for her expertise and for her business model - but mostly because if you're going to see your first steek cut, there probably isn't anyone better to do it! It was a wonderful class - the first half hour was some history (with an emphasis on the financial imperative having developed the highly efficient two-handed style of knitting, the left hand working Continental and the right working in English style), and a demonstration of all the basic techniques, with several samples, and the aforementioned steek-cutting (up the front of a v-neck cardigan). In the second half we embarked on a sample (on two DPNs, breaking the yarns off at the end of each row so we were always knitting from the front), while Alice came round each small group of people and commented/corrected as necessary. I was keen enough to finish the sample in the bar at St Pancras before catching my train home; and am going to do some more soon. And I got my new book signed!

As last year, the best part of the day was meeting up with people I knew and hadn't seen for ages. I didn't get pictures of littlelixie (apart from a sliver of her back on the final Debbie New photo!), who was on fine form in a lovely sequinned top until her back gave out again, or of daisydaisydaisy who was there on Sunday and shared a half-hour in the café with me. Or of several other people...

Sparkleduck was around, and some of her beautiful yarn was also on display at Woolly Workshop.

Here's Harvey, taking a well-deserved break towards the end of Friday

and from way too early on Sunday morning, the wonderful Woolly Wormhead - it was soooo good to see her again! And look, she's carrying two of her gorgeous Hats. She was teaching, but not till the afternoon...

From Cambridge, frizzyknits and her friend whose name I have forgotten again (I always want to steal their beautiful hair...)

And a very rare sight, Gerard, the force behind the whole enterprise, actually sitting down. I think this probably only happened for about 3 minutes. The whole organising crew was dashing around all over the place. Comments from last year had obviously been taken on board by the venue - the food lasted all day and the cashpoint had been filled up! As I left at about 4pm, AlpacaAddict came racing round the back of the building heading for the front - still working away... Thanks, guys; it was wonderful.

It was an altogether charmed weekend. I was so cheerful even trailing my three rather large bags through the village that I tried my "make-an-emo-smile" trick and it worked (if you grin unexpectedly at them they smile back , they can't help it, until they remember that everything's-just-wrong-and-life-isn't-fair and reassume their scowl. Bless their miserable little hearts...). And then I got home just as an SUV from Emmaus pulled up outside - one of the occupants got out and headed towards the shop. So I chanced my arm as everything was going so well, and talked to the driver, and he came in and got the folding bed I've been trying to get rid of for a while now and bunged it into the boot and drove away with it. Result.

I'll take pics of the shopping later on, for the next post...