Happy Hell 'O Weird

So, what about the wool/yarn then???

In anticipation of the millions of wool shops and mounds of yarn, I actually took an EMPTY suitcase which I intended to fill to the brim with wool and knitting needles from Italy......

Number of wool shops found : NONE
Number of shaken (shook?!) heads when asking for wool shops : MANY
Number of small haberdashery shops with one small basket of wool : ONE
Number of balls of wool from basket purchased and brought home : TEN
(TEN!! Ten frigging balls of wool in the whole of Italy - and no choice of colours or types - just TEN BALLS!!)

But, I was so excited after two weeks of total withdrawal to finally find the shop with the wool, that I grabbed every ball they had in the basket.
Saleslady to me : "You no can take-a all the wool-a"
Me to saleslady : "Oh yes-a I can-a"
Saleslady : "NAW, leave for nother signora"
Me : "F**k nother signora, I want it ALL"
Saleslady : "NAW!!!!!!! macaronispaggettiraviollitagliatelli* (*unintelligible stream of Italian)"
Me : Grabbing handsful of wool "Give me this NOW"
Saleslady : "Half-a now, half-a tomorrow"
Me : "W-T-F????"
Saleslady : "Mama Mia ....!!!"
Me : "Mama flipping MIA ....!!!"

So, I bought half the balls then, and had to make a return trip the next day to buy the rest - which, lucky for the saleslady, was still there!!

And this is what all the fuss was about (there are 4 balls of the reddish ones) :



Oh yes, and the ONE pair of double pointed needles they had - twice as long as normal - I am not sure if I will ever actually USE them, but I HAD to have them too!!

Oh alright then ......

There WERE some slightly younger, slightly sexier, slightly yummier Eye Tal Eons. In fact, there were MEN IN TIGHTS even ....














However, when they whipped out their flagpoles (yep, that's what I said!!) and started waving them around for the audience to admire ......












We began to feel nervous and wonder about them ....








.... and THEN .... they staged a battle and began whacking each other with swords and broomsticks .....














Until they "died" ...














Well, that was when I KNEW .... we South Africans may be strange, but at least we are not completely LOCO COCO!!

Italian Stallions

(especially for You-Know-Who .... don't you Maryannlucy??)

Purely in the interests of research, OF COURSE, we headed for the market to case out the local Italian stallions ....














But found the offerings were about as derelict as the 400 year old buildings around them!














But if you look at what they eat .... it's no wonder they are all dried up and shriveled!















This is the best sighting of an Italian stallion we got all vacation ...!


.....


...


..

Hedwig's great great great granddaughter arrived!

My Harry Potter swap pal sent us a lovely package which seemed to have toured the world before landing on our doorstep (it came from Canada, went to the USA, then to India (?!) and finally to us in the UAE!!)

Look at the lovely loot we received :

I was so excited to get the Charmed Knits book and the embroidery yarn, that I immediately started a Ravenclaw bookmark for DD. I took it on holiday and now it is finished and really looks smart - the first time EVER that I have knitted a pattern exactly, with no changes to the yarn or pattern!!

Thanks Pixieriot, you can breathe now!

Guess who's back ......

Oh yeah ... you thought I was gone for good, did you? No such luck ... I needed a bit of time to clear my head and then went looking for some Italian stallions .... (more about that later) - so pour yourself a strong cuppa chow or a double whiskey, sit back, put your feet up and have a squiz at what's been going on in MY life .....

Do you D A R E ?????? Huh? Huh? Do you? I double dare you ....

I won, I won, I WON!!!

Well, I never .... I actually won that Jeffrey Dahmer knitted bag competition (with my intestine bag) Karin Slaughter who ran the competition sent me two different copies of her current bestseller - autographed!! And these were some of the other goodies I received as my prize :




















I am SO entering all the competitions I can find from now on!!

.....but, I followed the pattern exactly!!!