And it's past my bedtime.  But lookit! Rona Shawl and booties and The Dishy Barrister's Fiancée's scarf.

OK, so I may have had just over a week off work, but a weekend still feels a little different (and no, that's not just because the Times was pushed through the letterbox this morning, which doesn't happen any other morning).  A list, therefore, is required.

• Brownies Accounts I have bought a coin counter.  Nearly gave myself a panic attack owing to lots of leftover coins.  Note to self.  15p in coppers looks rather more than it actually is.  Bonus points for contacting AON about insuring the contents of the cupboard, so the Good Captain at church can stop worrying about it.
• Phone T's Mummy, about T's behaviour last week, and the fact that if T doesn't pull her socks up, Brown Owl will be confiscating that Seconder's Badge and giving it to someone else.  Seconders (i.e. the second-in-command in their Sixes - small groups that they work in) do not go bullying the smallest Brownies.  Not in my Pack.  So Nyah. wimped out, will speak to her face-to-face.
• A/A Forms for Guides Overnighter (I've filled in two and a half copies, I need to do four.  All in Block Capitals).
• Block Rosa Buy pins to block Rosa.
• Photograph The Dishy Barrister's Fiancée's wedding present
• Photograph The Dishy Barrister's wedding present, when it gets to the first full set of colour repeats.
• Thus, get The Dishy Barrister's wedding present to the first full set of colour repeats. Got distracted by a mistake in the booties.  Re-did almost a whole bootie.  Suspect starting from scratch would have been quicker, but less satisfying.
• Find out how long he wants his wedding present to be (please, not 6' 4")  I've asked.  Yet to receive a reply.   Oh.  4'.  V. achievable.
• Teach The Extremely Tall Flatmate how to cook, as if he has ready-made Macaroni Cheese once more, I'll go mad.  He protests that he likes it.  I think I am getting jealous.  There shall be wheat-free, low-dairy Macaroni cheese with breadcrumbs and bacon just like Mama used to make in my future.
• Buy Halloween Masks and Self Hardening Clay for Brownies.
• Finish Laundry
• Put away sheets
• Supermarket shop
• Make booties for latest morris dancing baby

I haven't been to Brownies for a fortnight now, and I miss them.

xxx

Worth watching in High Quality.  Sir Roger Norrington has some important stuff to say, and I totally agree with him.  And, at 5.08, a brief glimpse of a brown flag: again at 5.50.  And at 8.17.

That's my Brownies' flag that is.  The brown flag, with the yellow clover.  Proud?  Overexcited?  Best Prom EVER?

Oh yes.

I got my Brownies' flag on the telly for them, and, you know what?  If I got squashed crossing the road this afternoon, I'd die a very happy Brown Owl.

Oh, and in answer to the question: what was the sensible explanation?  I gave up on the sensible explanations.  I told the truth, and they all approved.  Good PR, to have the trefoil on the Last Night of the Proms.  It's a big party, with some rattling good tunes, and lots and lots of different flags from all round the world.  And, you know, we need to be unapolagetically Patriotic once of a while.

There'll be photos of my sock in progress and its adventures yesterday, but probably not for a day or so.  It's got a couple more adventures to go on today.

xxx

Replication from a SQL2005 database to a SQL2000 database.

Sales emails informing me that I am the largest user of a product (I'm 5' 4" on a good day, the rest of them must be midgets)

My colleagues reading out the subject lines from their spam folders - grow up guys?  Please?

Knitting falling off the needles.

Typos in the command line.

Moths (regardless of genus).

My Mum treating me as though I'm six years old (still, and perpetually).

My phelgmy cough, which sounds grim, but does not achieve.

Ex-Marines who cannot manage their diaries, thereby causing me to question what day of the week it is again.  This is entirely confusing and thus irksome.

Not being able to think of a tenth annoyance.

xxx

 It was wet.  It was very wet.  To say we got caught in another rain shower while waiting in the queue to get into the hall was, I think, an understatement.  If you can imagine one hundred knitters, mostly female, cowering under umbrellas as a miniature monsoon unleashed its worse  yet again, that would be more like it.  The rain is getting quite ridiculous at the moment: it pelts down, it lashes legs, and it leaves behind a scent of wet dog mixed with carbon monoxide.  I rather wished I'd stashed my books in an non-environmentally-friendly plastic bag.  I pulled up the hood of my Rugby waterproof, told myself that my trousers weren't that wet, really they weren't, and waited.  And, you know, we all fitted into the room, and there was a collective sigh of relief that we hadn't drowned, and our legs began to dry out.

There were a lot of knitters:

I was also somewhat cold and damp-legged: I'm not usually this blurry.  My camera did not appreciate dampness.  We sat.  We waited.  A somewhat awesome site.  I would guess that 90% of the audience was knitting while they waited.  I kitchenered the toes of my socks: they're made from the yarn I won in a Knitters Without Borders draw a wee while back.  I wanted to show them off.

And then, she arrived.

And the microphone took grave exception to this and started yelling and booming.  You can tell she's married to a sound engineer.  She leapt backwards in shock, then grasped it firmly, and it stopped vibrating, and the hidjous boom ceased.  Then, she took pictures of her sock.

As one does.  She explained that she shows these to her Mum, to prove that this knitting thing worked out.  She's got a surprisingly deep voice for someone who's very small (I'd say 5' 0' - just a tad taller than my Mummy).  And, I sat and knitted a hat, and she told us about how we are valid people (personally, as someone who is a morris dancer, I do not need the validation: I've just really got on with it, but then perhaps I'm odd or used to it, and non-nervy and I can see how some people would want to be told, yes, this knitterly obssessed behaviour is OK.  Frankly, if you've knitted on a bus on tour with a rugby team which is singing the S&M man song, you've probably got the gumption to deal with anything a non-knitter may throw at you.  And no, the S&M man song is not suitable to Google at work, so don't), and how knitting is a nice repetitive activity, which puts us into a theta state, and allows us to deal with trauma better, induces neuroplasticity - allowing the brain to reinvent and reinvent, and may prevent Altzheimers (I do hope so.  Half the family on my Father's side seems to have had Altzheimers).  She was very funny: I did enjoy listening to her.  I may well be more of a scientist than I thought I was, which is an utterance that will bring joy to at least one of my friends.

And then we trooped back over the road, into the other hall, for a book signing.  I was very lucky: I was near the front of the queue.  She was still signing when I left at about 6pm, with a huge queue still waiting very patiently.  We Brits can queue...

The queue went from the blue roofed stall, down to the end of the hall, and snaked back up again to where the tables begin.  Quite.  Everyone in the queue was terrifically friendly: one of the things about being a knitter, the Yarn Harlot reminded us, is that we talk to people and sit next to people, that we wouldn't otherwise meet, or socalise with, or go looking for.  And that's rather good. 

There was this wicked display of knitted aliens just by where she was signing...

And then.  And then.

The Yarn Harlot with a pair of Spring Forward Socks, knitted by yours truly, using some rather nifty yarn (for which I found the label yesterday: it's White Birch Fiber Arts, the colourway is 'Wild Woman') that I only have because of her.  And she asked how I came to be one of the 1 in 1000, so I told her about the trip to Chicago, and we agreed that it's important that the shoot wasn't 1000 American Knitters: I am not sure whether I'm the only Brit or not.  I think probably not.

ETA: if you'd like to see her view?  Here...

Then, I took some other photos, bought some yarn, to make a rather snuggly wrap, and had to go to work.

Here are pictures of the finished socks (they've taken about a fortnight), and the hat that was cast on while I was listening to the Yarn Harlot, and finished last night just after I got back from work.  I must say, it did make waiting for the server to reboot distinctly less traumatic...

(yes, they have since been washed)

Also, in the department of, it's Sunday and there's photos: Tattoos, and the orchestra for last Sunday's Prom (at which I sobbed, because Verdi's Requiem makes me feel 13 years old and I hate it for that, and I love the music so much) and the Albert Memorial looking all shiny.

(really, it was quite a relief when he went home, as every time he found a reflective surface, he admired his tattoo, and posed a little, and it got wearing)

(apparently the flower has three layers of ink)

(It doesn't lean in real life, that's the camera being wonky, owing to ill operation).

xxx

I am now the proud possessor of a "One in 1,000" top; as part of the 1,000 knitters project, for which I was photographed, with OHP, in March, in Chicago, I am contractually obliged to wear this tomorrow.  If I told you that I am thrilled that it picked up a customs charge on the way through, and therefore didn't arrive at the work Post Room, so I had to collect it from the Delivery Office (silly nomenclature the one thing it doesn't seem to do is deliver), you may gather how excited I am.   In fact, I may have to go pee any second now.  It is That Exciting.  All pretext of work has now been given up, as I am bouncing about the room like a two-year-old on Skittles.  It didn't arrive at work, so I got it Just In Time for the Knitting Show because I'm working (ha) from home.

My inner extrovert is getting very excited and debating which jeans, which shoes, what makeup.  Because, you know, if I turn up to an exciting Knitting Show wearing that, chances are that a sizeable proportion of the attendees will know exactly what it's about.

Now, if I could just remember what number I am, it would help matters.  I think I'm 470-ish.  It doesn't really matter.  Sara, can you remember?  I wish I were better at numbers, but I forget my PIN on a semi-regular basis so, really, any other 4 digit number is going to go out of my brain like, oh, prunes through a neveryoumind.

Did I mention I'm positively incoherent with excitement?

xxx

I feel pretty much myself again: well, I still have a cough, but then I'm asthmatic.  That's pretty much the status quo.   I do notice that when I'm up and about I cough more, and hack up phlegm in a non-asthmatic manner, so I shall call it the payoff for being up and about.  Hurrah for an extra day spent doing almost nothing.  It was necessary. I should have done this at the beginning, and then I might have shortened the length of this ill thing process, and spare everyone my sorry-for-myself whinging.

It wasn't quite almost nothing.  I established that my DVD player does not work, that the new, el-cheapo DVD player also does not work, but rather worse, and that the DVD drive on my laptop does work (so I did much watching of Torchwood on my laptop).  Em came round and we planned a sleepover for the Guides, and I Made A List of Things to Achieve before the end of the weekend.  I laundered the sheets for the spare bed again and I think I got rid of the stain this time.  I wrapt a present, and am waiting to see the recipient to give it to her.  I ordered in Spicy Chinese and actually finished the whole portion and promptly had stomach ache (got the wrong sort of noodles) but my nostrils felt clearer.

I stuck my fingers in my ears and went tra la la la and pretended that everyone was happy rather than roll myself into a little ball sobbing.  Rolling myself into a little ball and sobbing is not going to help anyone.  It just makes me feel more helpless.  Keep going.  Stiff Upper Lip and all that.  Knit.  Lots.  Knitting helps.  My next knitting project will be the Dishy Barrister's wedding present: I shall cast on his fiancée's scarf first, since I feel that it's more important to do hers, and I have a clear pattern for that.

I also turned a heel and knit most of a foot: those socks will be ready for the Yarn Harlot and so shall I.  I hope the recipient doesn't have gargantuan feet, but I have spare yarn enough to deal with that eventuality.

Back to work.  I have the attention span of a gnat.  I've also had three cups of coffee thus far, and I can't sit still!

xxx