Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again

Or rather, I dreamt that H and I were sailing around some unspecified Scottish islands in the most beautiful yacht - all teak decks, creamy sails, a gaff rig and a proper ships wheel to steer by. It was perfect - and I may be homesick for my holiday!



It seems scarcely believable that I've only been back at work a week; if you caught me in an unguarded moment I'd probably tell you I was shattered and I really needed a break!


Some of our clothes still have that faint whiff of a salty wind and there are still pebbles from the beach stuck in the grooves of our boots so it wasn't all a dream.

I am in very grave danger of turning into an advert for the Scottish Tourist board I know, but it is a really beautiful part of the world.



The rocks on the jetty had amazing colours of lichen depending on where they were on the tide line




you know that someone with a penchant for burnt orangy-red was going to love this colour - I'll have to take up yarn dying and make a colourway to match - "Jetty and Seaweed"!

Or a very pale blue and pinky-red - "Lonely Mussel"

The seaward end of Loch Etive is distinctly different to the mountains of our first trip out; the mountains falling from Glen Etive give way abruptly to rolling hills and scenery very reminiscent of the southern English coastline - at least, a southern English coastline with a mirror on the horizon.



We went out fishing twice while we were up north, sadly with a negative profit - we caught no fish whatsoever apart from the mackerel strips we were using as bait; and managed to snag and snap four sets of hooks and line, which I think is a family record. The hook lines used for deep fishing are a work of art in themselves - a mix of plastic beads and strips of shiny film tied together to look like a string of the most inviting, luscious prawns ever seen by a big fish at the bottom of the loch:


The trick is to gently tweak the line up and down to make the plastic prawns look like they're swimming - the lack of fish suppers suggests that (a) I hadn't quite got it and (b) the fish preferred the real prawns that day.



Sitting out in the boat, drifting with the breeze and the tide in that wonderful sea air and glorious sunshine - well it's amazing we came back at all.



Come back we did, and as you can see I have been knitting as usual, and finishing up what may well be one of my most favourite pairs of socks to date:


These are my completed Fireside socks and to be honest, I think they are simply wonderful.



The only change that I made to the written pattern was to go up to 2.5mm needles to make a bigger size, which means that when they are on my feet they don't loose the 3-D texture of flames licking up your feet.

They were easy to knit, they look fab, what's not to love?

So now that I've finished the fire element, should I go for Earth, Water or Wind next?

I'll leave you with the perfect sunset as I go back to dreaming of the distant north:

Holidayzzzzzzz!

You know the moment in any aerobics or yoga class when you've been holding a stretch or a position, (or in my case, trying to hold it, crashing over on to the floor in a jumble of flying limbs, picking myself and trying to pretend like nothing happened), and the teacher says "and now, relaaax", and you're so exhausted from the falling and the flailing and the trying to do crazy exercise things that you feel like you might just fall asleep? That would be me right now.

I've got some time off work now but the ying of the holiday required the yang of a week spent trying to get as much done as humanly possible so that it 'counts' for this financial year. I feel as if I've been running around in circles for a week and I'm so happy to be spending the time off with family and friends and my pillow!

The knitting has been going around and around in circles too - but in a good way.

First on the needles - after Lava comes Fire:



This is Part 2 of the Pink Lemon Twist Fire Elements patterns - Fireside. It is billed as the more complicated sock but whilst it looks really complicated and impressive, it's actually just a simple combination of yarnovers and decreases and the pattern is very memorable so I didn't need to have the chart in front of me after the first repeat or so.



It knits up into a wonderful flickery flame texture that happily isn't lost when the sock stretches out on my foot.

I've spent the afternoon curled up on the sofa catching up on some videoed tv from earlier in the week and I've almost finished this first sock.

The yarn is Holiday Yarns FlockSock Yarn in Crimson Rioja, which was the gift of the yarn fairy as part of the 2008 Flock Sock Club. It is the perfect colour for this pattern, and was part of the impetus to rescue both patterns off my computer and start knitting!

The first time I took a picture of my 'at home' knitting, it looked like this:


And life ran away with me, and I never got a chance to show it to you. It now looks like this:



Clearly that's huge progress! It is the start of the Phyllo Yoked Pullover from Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature, with Carie-style tweaks! The original pattern has you knit the front, back and sleeves flat and then join for the yoke but I've started the body in the round so that I can put in a little bit of waist shaping along the way - so far, so good!

And finally, no circular motion round-up is complete without news from my Sonata:


Bobbin 1 of a predicted 3 - having enjoyed the Socktopus Sock Club so much it made perfect sense to join the fibre club! This is Polworth which is a wonderfully fluffy and crinkly fibre that spins like a dream.

It came as one long length of roving which I divided into three bumps. I've then predrafted the bump and spun it up fairly fine with really long colour repeats. The long term plan is to get a barber-pole striped heathery yarn, similar to my handspun sock yarn, that I can use for a hat, or mittens, it all depends how much yarn I get from the roving.



At the moment I'm aiming for a three-ply 4ply weight and I'm considering Kim Hargreaves' Robin hat pattern - probably sans bobble though!