Buying sock yarn in Reading

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...