I have been a Bad and Neglectful Blogger and not showed you the needle roll Crafty Bernie sent me. It came weeks ago, and was the best type of informal swop. I sent Bernie some wool, and she sent me a needle roll in return. She was happy because she had some wool which she wanted. In return she cleared out a little bit of my stash (thank you Bernie) and made me a home for my knitting needles (thank you Bernie).
It also came with this:
The lilac shrug worn by Luna here (also some scarves).
The lace cardigan demonstrated by Delores Umbridge.
Ron's sweater which has a plain back.
There was another top which only came up momentarily, but it looked like Leonie
(fifth of the little pictures). It was in browns, and might have be mainly knitted apart from the crochet edging.
Hermione wore a fair isle sweater in some scenes.
I've mislaid my camera, which means I can't show you pictures of my topologically impossible sock knitting, or the knitting needle roll which Crafty Bernie made for me.
However this is not a pictureless post: do you rememberthis post? I showed you: 
a pot scrubber made from knitted plastic bags.
Well Ferret found a tutorial which shows how to make material from plastic bags. The possibilities are fascinating.
The other shop I went to in Reading was Jacksons, an old-fashioned department store. My route from the carpark led me past the shop before I got to the main shopping centre, so I had a very quick look round. I identified sock wool (several makes) as being a probable purchase, but they also had Sirdar, Patons and I think Gediva. The total area dedicated to yarns was quite reasonable, and they also had rug yarns. I didn't notice anything in the way of fabric.
After I'd looked round some of the other shops, I returned to the wool department in Jacksons and selected two balls of St Ives Sunbeam, made by Thomas Ramsden, in the colour "Heathland". This comes into the category of cheap and cheerful, a wool nylon mix in a shade of green that is nearly, but not quite solid.
The shop was so old-fashioned that when I took it to the counter, the assistant got out a pad and wrote out the receipt, calculating the price and the change due herself. (Funnily we had been discussing at the tutorial how no-one needs to know basic arithmetic any more.) There was a till, but it was shut up - it was 5pm on a Saturday afternoon. No problem, she took the whole lot to another department where there was a device worthy of a Harry Potter film. The assistant put the handwritten receipt and the cash into a cylinder like the "airtube carrier" pictured here. She put it into a hatch, and there was a whoosh. A little while later there was another whoosh, she opened the hatch and took the pod out again. Inside was the change, a five-pound note.
(Full details of the system in Jacksons on this website: the pictures could have been taken yesterday.)
Coming soon, the topologically impossible knitting, or the socks that cannot be knitted...
I'm back!
A very close relative died, that's where I went. It was sudden, and we weren't expecting it, but not a total shock. What did take me by surprise was how completely it drained my energy: when they say "take each day as it comes" they forget to add "because you can't cope with tomorrow as well".
I had an OU tutorial in Reading yesterday. Then I went and had a quick scoot round the shops there. I found two shops selling wool, both had been discussed on the angel yarns forums.
The first was John Lewis: the department seems quite small compared to John Lewis in Milton Keynes. It had a range of Debbie Bliss and Rowan wool as well as some more typical Sirdar or Patons. I selected two balls of Debbie Bliss cashmerino superchunky, because they matched the 8 balls of Space I'd bought in Ireland last year. The shop-keeper had decided I needed 8 balls for the pattern I'd selected, although actually I was a size larger, and would have liked to have had one spare in case I ran out. I think I matched the colour pretty well from memory.
I also bought some balls of Debbie Bliss Soho: partly because they matched the superchunky for colour. Anyway, I really liked them. I asked the assistant if they had any patterns. They didn't, and although she said it would knit to any pattern for aran, she looked a bit dismissive when I said I just wanted to go home and knit. 
I'll show you the sock wool later: if I don't post now I won't for ages.
Put it like this: real life has got in the way of posting, and I have no words to tell the world about it. Do I post a poem, or a picture, or some words, or just go back to my normal posting about random craft type things?
I probably won't post anything less cryptic, and I may even delete this post. But today was the first day of the rest of my life.
