Hello I love you, won't you tell me your name

Hello hello, I'm back!!

Excuse the title of this post, I love The Doors and I wanted a song name with hello in it, so that is why that's there. Plus I love you and often I don't know your name!

Just to warn you, this will be a long one. Go get a drink and maybe some snacks and settle in and get comfy. I'll wait for you.....

Ready??

After much heated argument(yea, like that's that different to "huge rows"??) in our house about the lateness of booking our holiday we finally went. It was a place that could have sounded dodgy...loving couples only.....no children under 12.....secluded jardin naturiste...(look that one up).....and, can I say, Rob found it, NOT ME. I had given up after looking on 246 bloody web sites and ringing round unhelpful places. This is what I was sick of.

Me:Have you got any availability for next week?

Rep:OH you're very late looking.

Me:Yes, I know. Do you have anything?

Rep:Well, you're just so late. We're booking for 2008 now.

Stressed Me:Do you know what, I don't care if you're booking for 2000 and fucking 10 HAVE YOU GOT ANY AVAILABILITY FOR NEXT WEEK???

One lady (I call her that in the loosest sense of the word) wanted me to pay for a holiday before she could tell me if it was available or not and then, if it wasn't, which she could tell me in the next 10 days, she'd refund me.

HELLO I need to go withing 6 days and DO I REALLY SOUND LIKE A MORON??????????

ok, forget the last bit, I was pretty frazzled by then and was probably doing a really great impression of a moron. Not a Mormon. Don't get confused or offended.

You can see why, when Rob found the dodgy sounding one I grabbed it with both hands very gratefully.

Actually, I may have said/shouted/sneered
Well it'll have to do, won't it, there's fuck all left because everyone else bothers to book it a year in advance

and then slammed off and threw myself on my bed. In a calm way, you understand.

We got there and it was ok. I was luckily not expected to roam around in my birthday suit nor throw my car keys in a bowl. I was expected to lay by the pool, eat lots and read lots. The people there also kindly didn't really mention my knitting when I did it in the evening. And that suited me just fine.

It was in the middle of maize field in the country side. This is the view from our bedroom window

Very calming.

The first sock got finished and the second sock got started. We all tried the first sock on. Except the dog didn't. This is me knitting at breakfast. I had conveniently forgotten about the obsessed comment my husband made (see previous post). Please don't think because there is no food in front of me, that I was not eating breakfast. I could NEVER do that. It would be sick ad wrong and unfair to my finely tuned metabolism.

Please excuse the state of me. I am on holiday AND I have just got up.

As I promised, I didn't do much except lay by the pool, reading books and eating French cakes. The French may know nothing about vegetarianism (and believe me, THEY KNOW NOTHING) but they do know how to make the world's greatest cakes. So that's pretty much what I lived on. What?

My dog swam in the pool


My dog was not impressed


I did read the Yarn Harlot's book, The Secret Life of a Knitter. I laughed out loud so many times, people were starting to look irritated. So I finished it in bed at night rather than round the pool in the day. Furtively. Then my daughter read it. It's the funniest thing. Especially the bit about TAKE. I can identify with that. I would recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it yet.


One day, there were clouds. This meant doing something other than laying by the pool. I had a plan!!!! In the hills, some 60 km away, was a mohair farm. Once I had convinced my TAKE that they really wanted to go, we headed off to find it. I had shot myself in the foot a bit. I hate heights, and the road there was mainly a small crumbling single track road dangerously perched on the edge of a steep hill, with no barriers. I tried to remain calm for everyone's sake, but I kept thinking if someone came around the corner on the other side of the road, we would be buggered. French people drive fast and in the middle of the road on a good day, so God alone knows what would have happened to us. Just when I was thinking thank God, it's a flatter and wider road, there was a big (and low down) cave, and the pissing road went straight into it. Did I mention that as well and verigo, I also have claustrophobia???????????

Bloody hell, look at this

Oh yes, that's the road leading into it.

I tried to stay calm. But it's not one of my strong points and I screamed

"I don't like it in here"

They all looked at me like I was mental. So I said it again (a bit louder and a bit more out of control)

"I REEEEEEAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYYY don't like it in here"

And then we were out. And it was ok. And we were all calm. Well they were. All I could think was....fuck...I have to go back through that to get home. I tried to concentrate on the mohair. And it got me through a scary moment. Just.

These gorgeous mohair goats were at the farm at the top of the hill. How sweet are they??



They are mohair on legs. I thought they looked like sheep. They also looked a bit like my dog. I kept her close to me in case they sheared her for her beautiful grey mohair. Coarse variety mohair.

Then someone shouted, Come on mohair goats, time for tea and a biscuit, and they all ran off


Inside the farm was what I had really some for. Check this out, fellow obsessives. No words, just pictures....(ps, this also counts for my YPF)






How lovely is that?

I was very restrained and only bought 5 balls.



The photos don't do the colours justice. They really are the most gorgeous intense shades. Of course, my daughter and husband asked the ridiculous question what was I going to make with them and then looked confused when I said I was merely going to LOVE them.
But my dog understood.


On the was back, we had to stop by the scary cave as the exhaust fell off the car. This is me and some of TAKE standing near it (a safe distance from it) the mohair side of it



Oh Yeah..............check out my braveness. I even went in it a little way. I came out quicker!

The rest of the holiday it was, thank goodness, sunny, so my nerves were spared. That is until we came home and sat in a traffic jam on the M11 for 4 and a half hours. Overheating. Stressed. Hungry. And can I just say...I know this may sound mean, but if I am going to sit in a traffic jam for such a long time, I do expect there to be a dent in the central reservation, a little blood on the road, a burnt out car or at least some luggage debris. I hope no one got hurt. I really do. But all there was when we eventually went passed was three police cars and a few overheated cars in the hard shoulder. And a lot of rubber neckers looking at them. Marvellous. Welcome home.

Moral of my holiday...

Book early for next year.

Hope you're all well and knitting furiously. I missed you all.

WIP updates coming soon. Also Secret Pal 11 has started so I need to post my questionnaire sone soon soon.