Sunny Sunday

Don't you just love a spring Sunday when the sun's shining?

For us it meant a trip to a car boot sale, on the way to visit the MIL. Sunny mornings are just made for excellent booty and the good people of Oxford were very obliging with their loot.

Today's little haul is pictured above and comprises a cone of wool/alpaca blend 3ply yarn in a pleasing heathery beige, 25 vintage silvery buttons and a necklace of unidentified black stones strung on black cord.

The books are Practical Knitting Illustrated (undated but published by Odhams in the 1940s) - full of wonderful patterns for everything you could think of and then some more; Pulp Frictions - a collection of hard-boiled detective stories from the likes of Chandler, Hammett and MacDonald, edited by the sadly late Peter Haining; Good Housekeeping Knitting - a pocket guide to over 90 beautiful patterns - and just the right size to slip in a knitting bag for when you're out and about; Depths by Henning Mankell - not a Wallander but a thriller set in 1914; and finally there is Alice Starmore's Fair Isle Knitting Handbook. When you take into account the three pots of herbs and the pile of bamboo stakes for the garden it all adds up to a very successful morning's bargain hunting.

I've finished reading The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths, proof kindly supplied by Karen at Eurocrime. I shall be sending her a full review this week but in the meantime let me just tell you that I thought it was great. Fantastic characters, good plot, wonderfully atmospheric setting. It was a great example of just what I was saying in my last post about how I don't mind not being fooled by the plot if the other stuff is good. I had seen the ending coming but I was enjoying the book and the company of the characters so much that I didn't care. Highly recommended.

Astrid is finished. Photos tomorrow (probably) but she's lovely and met with much approval when I wore her to spinning group on Friday.

I'm off work for a few days now so there will be much gardening, housework (yuck!) and probably a trip or two to report.