Mysteriousyarns in Blog Update Shock!

I can't believe that it's been nearly a month since I last posted. I guess that's what Christmas in retail does to you. I have lost all track of time and usually have no idea what day it is.

I have been reading a bit though, finishing Simon Beckett's Written in Bone which I enjoyed, even though I had figured it all out before the end. Good characters and an interesting setting - see, I'm easily pleased.

Then I read American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld which I didn't enjoy so much. It started well, a well-turned story of a woman whose life has been overshadowed by an early tragedy, and it's based (at least in part) on the life of Laura Bush so you get to see how "Alice" gets to the White House. I have to say that the final chapters were a big disappointment - once Alice becomes First Lady the story loses all its focus and the last part is very dull. However, after I'd finished it I kept thinking about Alice and while she had been quite irritatingly self-centred throughout the book once I'd finished she kept popping up in my head and I got quite annoyed about her selfish misuse of a fantastic opportunity. She was so wrapped up in herself and her marriage to the nauseating "Charlie" that I wanted to slap her. It's not often that a character gets under my skin like that, so if that was your intent Ms Sittenfeld then I salute you - but that last section of the book was still terrible.

I'm now reading Instruments of Darkness by Imogen Robertson (due to be published in paperback in April 2010, but available now in hardback). It's set in the 18th Century, is full if interesting characters and has really grabbed me so far, but I'm only 50 pages in so time will tell.

All my Christmas knitting (that I can report on here anyway) is done and dusted. My new loom now has a proper home in the corner of the dining room. I have a day off today and I've just remembered that it's Wednesday so it's the Christmas Party at my reading group tonight. And on Saturday I'll be at the Advent Gathering hosted by the Staffordshire Moorlands Guild of Spinners and Weavers. Hey, things are looking up!

And the winner is......

....sadly not me. The Booksellers Bursary went to Russell and Sara, whose entries I haven't read yet but I'm sure will be excellent. Several people were very complimentary about my short story, and it was really good just to be shortlisted. It makes me realise that I have been neglecting my writing of late and that I really should try and make a space for it somewhere in my hectic schedule.

We had a good day out in London anyway - any day that involves bookshops, a couple of glasses of good wine, a stroll around someplace you haven't been before (ie. Marylebone High Street) and some sushi, will always be a success in my book.

I could have done without the totally freezing journey home in a very draughty train with no heat, but that was the only dampener on the day.

Next post - knitting update, honest!

A Blustery Day

We had a fantastic day out in London on Sunday, despite the rain and the wind.

The first thing on our agenda, after a cup of coffee of course, was the ABC (Art. Book and Comics) Show at the Royal National Hotel. By the time we got there we were drenched, as not all the tube lines were operating and it seemed easier to walk, even in the wet, than try and work out how to get from where we were to where we wanted to be by tube.

The show was great - lots of great comic artwork for sale, lots of comics and some interesting books. I wandered round for a while then went and sat in the foyer with the coats and purchases and my knitting to allow Pete to carry on looking.

When we got out of the fair the rain had finally stopped so we took a tube up to Holborn and walked down through Covent Garden and down Charing Cross Road stopping off in all the bookshops,as you do. In Foyle's I picked up Ghost of Flea by James Sallis, the last of his Lew Griffin novels and the only one I was missing.

A quick detour up Oxford Street and down Regent Street to Hamleys finished our little tour. It reminded us of when the Evilpixie was small and a trip to London just had to include a trip to Hamleys. Sunday was the last day of half-term and Hamleys was absolutely heaving.

It was a good day, despite the wet start. And I'll be back in London again on Friday because I've been shortlisted for the Booksellers Bursary - a writing competition open to all employees of Waterstones. I'm not expecting to win, but the prize of £500 and a Arvon Foundation writing course would be lovely. I'm really just pleased to be shortlisted as I know there are some really great writers among my fellow booksellers. I'll let you know how I get on!

A Pile of Booty

I never did update you on what I managed to buy while we were in Scotland.

There was this, not inconsiderable, pile of crafty books -

There's, from the bottom, a lovely book on William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, Designers Design for Themselves which is about American Arts and Design, Knitting in Vogue (Patterns from the 1930s to the 1980s), Knitting Nostalgia - Knitwear 1920-1950, Amish and Menonite Quilts, Designing for Weaving, The Knit Kit, Handknit Style, Simplicity's Quilts and Patches, and finally Spinning and Weaving at Home which includes instructions for making a spinning wheel out of a bicycle - not sure I'll be trying that but it's a interesting book anyway.

I also had a little Stash Enhancement Moment which resulted in the following -

That's 200g of merino in lovely tones of green and a ball of the brightest Opal sock yarn I could find. I have to say that stash enhancement opportunities were few and far between. I had a vague plan of buying some Jamieson & Smith shetland in various colours with the aim of some fair isle knitting but I never actually saw any in any yarn shop I was in. Sadly it seems that yarn shops in Scotland have fallen by the wayside exactly as they have in England. Perth didn't seem to have a yarn shop at all, most of the other shops I was in were full of acrylic stuff and baby yarn. Twist Fibre Craft Studio in Newburgh was a beautiful shop, with lovely stock (and it was there that I bought the things pictured above), but by and large I was disappointed with the quality/choice of the yarns available elsewhere. I'd got it in my head that there would be lots of great yarn shops lurking in the many places we visited but alas this was not to be. Maybe we were in the wrong places, or maybe our timing was bad - certainly there were shops I knew about that we didn't get to because we weren't in the right area when they were open, or we just didn't have the time to spare to make a detour. Probably just as well - if they'd all been great shops I'd be bankrupt!

Next post on Monday hopefully, when I will be reporting on my trip to London on Sunday - to a comic fair primarily - might manage to squeeze a yarn shop in somewhere if any are open on a Sunday.

Also I have exciting news about something happening later in the week, which involves another trip to London. I have such a cosmopolitan lifestyle.

Finally.....a connection.

We are home again after our little (but very busy) trip into the Northlands.

Sadly I was unable to take you along with me due to the lack of internet access up there. I'd planned to blog a little every day but it was not to be so you'll have to make do with a few update posts.



We left here early on Sunday morning and after negotiating the many sets of roadworks on the M6 (there were 10 lots of roadworks between Birmingham and Carlisle!) we arrived in Glasgow where we spent a couple of hours mooching around the Barras market.




It's a funny old place, a real mix of stuff - secondhand books, antiques and all sorts of new tat. We always enjoy a wander around though even if we didn't really buy very much. Getting out of Glasgow proved a tad more difficult than we expected as they seemed to have removed all road signs directing anyone East and also closed some of the on-ramps to the M8. We got away eventually but it was very frustrating.



We were headed for Perth where we based ourselves for a few days while we explored round Fife, Perthshire and Dundee. Highspot of the stay for me was a trip to Twist Fibre Craft in Newburgh where I bought some fibre and some sockwool. Pictures of this to follow.


We also visited an exhibition in Dundee which featured sculptures based on the Starblazer comics and had some of the original artwork from the comic. It was fascinating but not as large as we would have liked. Sadly it is the only exhibition in Dundee of artwork from DC Thomson's archive. More on that in a future post.



On Wednesday we headed further north to meet up with some friends we hadn't seen for a very long time. By this time I was beginning to remember all the things that irritate me about Scotland - the lack of decent places to eat, sketchy internet access, the scarcity of decent coffee, the terrible roads. If you'd asked me on that morning if I would ever move back to live there I'd have said you were mad.

However a couple of very busy days in the North East near Aberdeen soon had me back in love with that part of Scotland at least. Aberdeen is such a vibrant, cosmopolitan city and the Moray coast is just beautiful. We spent a day exploring along the coast with K&D, our very lovely and hospitable friends. Portsoy in particular is just amazing.

I really wouldn't mind living somewhere near there.
We had a fantastic time and it was great to meet up with K&D. Apologies to everyone else up there who we didn't manage to get hold of - time was very tight - but we promise we will be back sooner rather than later.

We didn't manage to get as much done as we had originally planned, and there were lots of people we'd love to have got together with and didn't, but we had a really great week (though with hindsight we should have gone for longer - there wasn't a lot of downtime in that week - we were on the go most of the time.) Ah well, there's always next time.

No News from the North

Internet access is a bit sketchy here so you'll have to wait till later in the week for my scintillating report on The Barras market, roadworks and charity shopping.

Back soon.

Holiday reading

Just a quick post as I'm in the throes of packing for our trip to Scotland and tidying the house and generally getting organised. I'm usually very particular and have lists and things about what needs done and what I'm taking etc but I am totally flying by the seat of my pants here and just throwing some clothes in a bag and hoping for the best. I'm especially hoping it's not going to rain much as I can't seem to find a waterproof jacket in the house anywhere.

So my final choice of holiday reading is this.

Written in Bone by Simon Beckett - it's set in Scotland, though not in any part we'll be in - it's an isolated community, with dark secrets and a murderer in their midst....and a big storm coming. Sounds just right to me.

The other is Library of the Dead by Glen Cooper, which is a Dan Brownesque thriller but with books - I suspect it's a bit of hoary old tosh but sometimes that's just what you need - especially on holiday.

Just two books, I hear you cry! Ah yes but the chances of me being in at least one secondhand bookshop, and probably a few other bookshops too, are quite high. Bit of a certainty. I'll keep you posted.