Eye Candy Friday

"Eye Candy Friday" originates from Purly Whites' blog -- the idea is that on Fridays, you post one of your own photographs. I harbor no illusions about my artistic ability with a camera, but occasionally a good image finds its way through the lens. My average is about one acceptable photo per twenty shots. I'd be better at it if I tried, or took a class, but for now I'll just acknowledge my shortcoming and post my one-of-twenties. It's a great idea, Purly!

The above photo is of a the Tink A Tank in Warwick, Warwickshire, England, taken on Monday September 5, 2005. It's a narrow lane behind and between the Collegiate Church of St. Mary and the Lord Leycester Hospital, partially squeezed between two brick walls before it opens up onto an alley and then a wider path. They call it "tink a tank" from the sound that people's feet make when they walk through it. It's dark, overgrown with trees and other greenery, and it spills you out at the very gate of a really old cemetery, with leaning-over, crumbly tombstones whose names are almost erased through time, the whole place loaded with atmosphere.

I visited England on a whirlwind business trip -- I was gone less than five days all told, time lags and all. One recurring dream I'd been having for years was that I was in a place that I'd always wanted to see, that I was there on business, and that I'd only have a few hours to be there, and it was the middle of the night. Once this dream took me to New York City; other times I visited Moscow or London. My real business trip was very like that dream -- since I was a little girl I had longed to see England, and now I was going to but literally had only hours to sightsee. I soaked up every bit of it I could, and on my return home immediately began to plan a return, this time with my husband, and only eight weeks later. We're committed Anglophiles now, if you can't tell by the rest of my blog. We're planning another even longer trip for sometime next year, my work schedule permitting (I'm embarking on a major project that might suck me up for eighteen months solid beginning in January, argh).

You can expect more England pictures for at least the first few Fridays.

In Knitting Knews, Pellew's Pelisse is still gaining a few rows a day, but I've been concentrating on the Psycho Sock out of sheer curiosity to see where the stripe repeats will take it next. First, I fixed the dropped stitches by un-knitting four rows and then re-knitting them. I've turned the heel and finished the ankle decreases on it, and will likely finish the rest of sock one this weekend. Oh -- I sewed the Nutcracker ornament together but discovered that in that vast acreage of craft supplies, I don't have a single square of black felt to finish the ornament off. Ghaaah!

Stay tuned.