KD's travels

Well well well - my two weeks off work is almost up and if anything I'm more exhausted than before, not to mention having made no dent in my long list of knitting! Can't complain though - my roaming ways have taken me to see some long unvisited friends and drink more wine than Jilly Goolden on a Saturday night lash-up. *hic*

First stop last Wednesday was the delectable Ruthie in Leicester - if you're on Twitter look her up under @MissRuthClare - although I still think she should have gone for @RealBridgetJones... :) Ruthie's the sort of galpal who I may not speak to for weeks on end, and then one of us will send the other a message, apropos of nothing, along the lines of "I wish Kim Woodburn was my mum" and we both know exactly what that means. I had the best intentions of taking her a commissioned Inverse Union Jack cushion, although that is still sitting in my to-do pile looking forlornly at me, and will have to travel by Royal Mail now - she certainly came up trumps with a gorgeous bangle and chunky ring set for my birthday though! 3 hours and two bottles of wine later (or orange juice, if her boss is reading) and our mission to put the world to rights was not yet half done. It's tough, this lady-of-leisure lark. Lord knows how Her Maj manages it.

Two days and one mild hangover later I was visiting Foo and Baby Bri in Banbury - no wine this time, although not for wont of trying :) Word of advice to anyone preparing for the London Marathon - you haven't run anywhere until you've run after an 18-month old with a Houdini complex. SHATTERED. Once we'd shoehorned him into the pram and got him off to sleep though, me and Foo had an awesome girly day fawning over craft materials and fabrics and charity shops. She does a rather superhuman job of bringing up the little dude with the pitiful benefits she receives, so when I'd finished fannying around with china duck ornaments (this one shop had hundreds of them) I had to concede I felt a little ungrateful for my relatively substantial lot, complaining about ONLY having two weeks off before getting back to the daily grind. I did briefly consider kidnapping them both and setting them up in our spare room, but I didn't have train tickets for them...

Ding ding! Monday's stop: Loughborough, and Katie B's houseboat. The rain put paid to any chance I had of taking photos, but the set up over at the marina is nothing short of idyllic. I had the extensive tour of the boat, which is compact and perfectly formed - there's a place for everything and everything is in its place. Could only be the home of a stage manager of course :) It's such a close neighbourhood too - apparently you can't bump your knee without the whole marina getting wind of it, but then the upside is you also can't walk 10 yards down the pontoon in the summertime without having a pint put in your hand, which seems like a fair tradeoff to me... Anyway, after a good old sesh of theatre gossip and some fajitas I was quite sad to leave Katie B and the ducks, but having promised it won't be the last I see of them both I can hardly leave it at that, can I?

Same day, different town: this train will be terminating at Bromley South, where I went to bid bon voyage to one of the best housemates a girl could ever ask for. Nola and Damian are relocating *SOB* to the sunny shores of Oz (from whence Damo hails) to become Mr and Mrs Damo and there was a raucous, if slightly weepy, last-day-of-work knees up at the Partridge, hallowed refuge of the Churchill techie. It wasn't all sobs though - good wine, old friends, babies on the way and no fewer than 4 engagements in the room made for a smashing night that really never felt like a goodbye (hmm, must check I did actually say goodbye before swanning off in a merlot mist)...

I could go on, but I've got some knitting to get on with - what with all this socialising I've barely crossed needles in a week and ducks don't knit themselves. Suffice to say I have an awesome bunch of friends and not enough time in the world to see them all. The only solution is getting your knit on.

Laters all. Have a glass of wine on me.
xx