Enjoyed a lovely day at Carol Gilham's knitting bee held to celebrate her birthday. Arrived in good time to enjoy morning coffee and delicious biscuits. Sock knitting seemed to be the order of the day especially as Carol is a bit of a sock guru and carries the pattern around in her head. Annabel and Vivienne were knitting with a sock kit that includes pre dyed wool that knits into a pattern resulting in something that makes you look a lot more skilful than you actually are……this will be the kit for me! Jo was being skillful, however, and was half way through an enormous pair of tradiditional Norweigan socks -this was desrvedly awarded Corol's project of the day.

Ruth Cory was up to the armhole shaping on a garment she described as a flak jacket. Fabulous construction in hand spun wool. I was amused to hear how Ruth started hand spinning on salvaging a couple of fleeces from a farmyard that she couldn't bear to see go to waste. Also chatted with her about 'Vera Drake' that we had both seen and agreed was absolutely fabulous both as a piece of cinema and as a comment on women and abortion.

We moved into the subject of the importannce of choice and understanding others points of view and somehow into the animal rights campaigners in particular the appalling treatment meted out to anybody who has contact with the guinea pig farm raising animals for medical experimentation.

Lunch was scrummy: homemade lentil soup with breads and cheeses from Caroline's Good Food shop served in the kitchen where Claire was encouraging us all to eat plenty as there was plenty more on hand.

Brenda offered up spare circular needles and cable needles of which I claimed some so I will definitely have to expand my knitting skills. Brenda was reknitting a cuff on a much loved cardigan-how's that for economy.(Chatted to my mum about this and she used to do the same with our school jumpers also extending the length as we all got bigger. I can also recall mum talking about turning a well worn coat, this was also touched upon in Vera Drake. Can't imagine that charity shops would have access to much stock in the 50's)

And I have been knitting a jumper in Rowan kidsilkhaze(shades 582 and 605) pattern design number 23 'Glint' by Kim Hargreaves in Rowan knitting magazine number 30. Simple roundneck striped jumper with edging in Rowan Lurex Shimmer (shade 339). Thinking that after this I will go for something more challenging.

I left in time to pick up John and Rose after a quick cup of tea and fruit bread. Knitters were still arriving. So if you are reading this Carol thankyou for a really lovely day and I look forward to more bees.