Rain, Wind and socks

If last week was what I love about my job this week was what I hate about it. Tuesday the weather was horrible; rainy and windy and generally bleaugh! My least favourite thing is unloading three quarters of a ton of gear off the truck to a shop that I can't park near so I have to trolley it all in the PISSING RAIN!!! I do get help from the shop owner but even so, the drop takes about an hour and a half which is a bit boring on a normal day but trudging back and forth in the rain is just the pits! I also had a delay on the first day so I didn't roll in to the yard until seven thirty on Wednesday evening and I was knackered.

Still it's swings and roundabouts I guess. Some weeks are good and some are bad, the good usually outweighs the bad (I think!).

On a more exciting (and knitting related) note, I've just got a parcel through the post! This little lot of loveliness is from Astrid's Dutch Obsessions, an online yarn store in the Netherlands. I have to say that Astrid is an absolute star. I went online a couple of weeks ago and tried to score some sock yarn but having chosen the ten balls that I wanted I went to the checkout only to be told that my trolley was empty! Boo, hiss!

Undeterred I tried again, and again. But it wasn't having it. I emailed Astrid and told her I was having problems but she wasn't able to shed any light on it as other customers weren't experiencing any difficulty but she was able to see what it was I wanted to order. When I tried again a week later it still wouldn't work so I contacted Astrid again. Now it would seem pretty clear that I'm doing something wrong but I don't know what, probably to do with cookies or summat. Anyhow, to cut a long story short Astrid emailed me a manual paypal invoice which I was able to authorise and before long the yarn was on it's way to me and I received it today (miraculously on my day off!). I'd seen the Trekking wool knitted up on someone else's blog and liked it (very understated) it makes a bit of a change from the wild and whacky coloured sock yarn that I usually use (though I got a couple of wild and whackys too). I even got a free ball of wool. A satisfied customer (eventually).

Eat your heart out Ro!! (she's given up buying anything over the internet for Lent.)

Next knitterly news is the completed Monkeys by Cookie A. in the latest Knitty. (Talking of wild and whacky colourways) These are in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Fall Foliage. I do like it (in fact I have a pair of Dublin Bay socks on the needles as we speak using up the remainder of the yarn) but I think that these more detailed patters look better in a plainer coloured yarn.

Close up of the pattern.

I suspect that for the next few months I will be mostly knitting socks!