Saturday dawned bright and very early and very slightly snowy.  But I grew up in the hills and microns of snow won’t stop me and I set out for (what turned out to be a Rogers and Hammerstein “Beautiful Morning”) Purlescence to do a Continental Knitting and Norwegian Purl workshop with Anniken Annis.

The universe (and specifically Transport for London) had other plans.  Having closed, but not updated their website, I found myself at Victoria with no circle line, no useful district line, no bakerloo line… basically the whole of zone 1 was unusable to get to Paddington.

Of course my 20 minute cushion vanished in the face of going via Hammersmith (including a 10 minute delay at Earl’s Court, because, ironically, the train was ahead of schedule) and I arrived at Paddington to watch the train pull out.  I *hate* being late.

At that hour of the morning (it was now 8.15am on a Saturday remember) I then had a very entertaining conversation with the information desk which felt like a maths exam question…

Me: I want to get to Didcot Parkway, I think the next train is 8.57am.  Can you let me know what time it gets there?
Information Desk: Oh, now.  that’s a long train.  it doesn’t get in till 10.30am
Me:oh. ok (keeping in mind the course starts at 10, and the station is about a 25 minute drive from the course room, so I now reckon I’ll be about 1 1/2 hours late)
Information desk: However, the train at 9.30 gets in earlier
Me: [brain going clunk] sorry? a train that leaves more than 30 minutes later gets in earlier?
Information: Yeap, by 15 minutes.
Me: How?  Oh, never mind.

so, having established that I had over an hour to kill (and HUGE thanks go to J of Purlescence for coming and saving me from the station) I thought I’d grab breakfast in the form of a bacon & sausage roll.  I found the only reverse microwave in the world – hot bread, lukewarm sausage and bacon and stone cold tomato sauce which was in the middle of everything.  Blah.

Finally I managed to get to the class, where I wasn’t snubbed by the class for being late (thank you ladies) and I hadn’t missed too much so was able to catch up.

Despite being able to crochet with both hands, I’ve never mastered knitting continental style.  I can ‘pick’ when I knit backwards, but never ‘got’ it normally. I made a mistake in grabbing my signature needles, you definitely need a slightly grabby needle to make this easier.  I still wouldn’t claim I’ve *mastered* it, but I am a lot better than I was, and I (strangely) found purling easier than knitting.  We picked up some great tips for long tail cast on and had conversations that ranged from cable needles to slankets.

My tensioning is still a bit, erm, random at best. I am far too tense when holding my needles but I have made a start and I have a half inch of a basketweave cowl to practice with.

Naturally I picked up a couple of bits in the shop during lunch (some of which has been put to one side for giftmas presents.  The journey home was *much* smoother and enjoyable – but the day couldn’t leave without one last ‘nudge’ and it took me 1hour and 40minutes to get pizza delivered from 1/2 mile away.

now to practice….