Alas...

After a wet, cold and miserable weekend - today I've woken with what certainly feels like the beginning of a cold. At the moment I'm in the fuzzy headed and active sinus stage... I'm still being optimistic and hoping it will blow over; I far too much to do over the next week or so to be ill!

Friday I worked from home - much to the cats' delight - while I waited in for my new washing machine. I'm happy to be able to report it was delivered as expected, has been unpacked (which involved a lengthy search for mythical plastic bits supposedly underneath the machine but nowhere to be seen) and connected to the water supply and waste pipe. With an ongoing torrential downpour throughout the weekend, I gave it a test drive and it works a treat. The only downside was just how long these 'A' rated appliances take to complete an economy wash!

Saturday I headed down to Warwick, to hunt for some knitting needles in the Crafty Cottage. Sadly, Jo had a sale on which destroyed my wavering self control and I ended up buy some very nice Lousia Harding 'Grace Silk and Wool'. I stayed for a while, enjoying a cuppa, sheltering from the rain while working on my sock and looking through some books. Jo also passed on some antiquated crochet mags which a gentleman had given her which belonged to his late wife and were in search of a new home. I was also completely surprised to be given a Christmas present, completely bowled over really since it was genuinely unexpected. Thanks Jo!

The rest of the weekend was dedicated to wrapping the mountain of presents I need to haul down to the South West to give to our families. I even managed to persuade Dave to wrap a couple!

My other preoccupation over the weekend was my first sock. I posted a picture of the sock last week, but on Thursday (the day after the photo was put up), the sock met with an accident.

I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but I'd reached the toe so was decreasing when some stitches fell off the needle. I didn't spot them until I'd knitted around and then I tried to pick them up. No matter how I tried, I couldn't. They were right in the decrease area and all that happened was I kept splitting the yarn.

After struggling for 20 minutes to pick the stitches up, I decided to take a deep breath and remove the needles, rip back a few rows to before the decrease and then put the stitches back on the needles. What I hadn't counted on was how difficult it is to pick up a round of stitches at such a tight guage. To cut a long story short, I just couldn't get the stitches back onto the needles.

Later, after much silent cursing and hard staring with no progress and things just getting worse every time I tried to fix it... I gave up. I ripped the entire sock out.

Friday evening, I started again.

And now... I'm on the foot again, slowly approaching the toe. Fingers crossed that this time, I make it all the way to the end!