News, of a kind

Many of you are regulars on Ravelry, so my most recent tale of disaster would be of little surprise to them. For those not on Ravelry, here goes.

Long story short - we came home. I missed everyone, it wasn't working out so well in Scotland and I nagged Felix until he agreed to come home (he'll tell you I didn't nag, but he's wrong and very sweet). The trip home was terrible.

First, the bus trip from Dundee to London - 12 hours, little room, heaters on full. Let us never speak of it again. We trained out to Heathrow where I went on a last minute present spree for my dad at Harrods and refused to buy me a 1974 Dalmore's single malt. I still think 400 pounds is a bargain. Heathrow did have a very very large advantage.















Here I am five minutes before boarding the plane. Knitting. I went through three security checks, and I'm knitting. Then on board guess what I did all flight - that's right. Knitting.

(NB: United needs to be less stingy with the alcomahol. US$6 for a very teeny beer is disgraceful.)

After staying awake for the next 10 hours flying over Iceland, Canada (hello Winnipeg!), the Grand Canyon, the salt plains of Utah (in the distance) we eventually landed in San Fransisco. It's not a very large airport, but we wandered up to security and passed through to the US on Inaugeration Day, no less. (Ask Felix about my reaction to the fingerpint scan. I went a bit silly.)

We had two hours before our connecting flight to LA, so we settled down, and I sent Felix away to find coffee. Sweet sweet coffee... He came back with the goods, and I reached between my feet for my backpack with my knitting. Wait...

Someone had taken my backpack.

This backpack was very dear to me, being both a birthday present from my parents and the cutest black leather backpack ever. The contents were variable:

• My wallet with my id’s, useful only for Australia, but no money at all
• My 2009 diary
• My mobile phone
• A ball of beautiful burgandy sock yarn, that was to become a pair of Earl Grey socks for my dad (yes, that burgandy sock yarn)
  
• 1.5 Incoming socks, knitted in Tofutsies for my mum.

They took my knitting. I had plans for the Incoming and Earl Grey Socks. They were to be a present for my parent's 47th wedding anniversary.

I was a bit confused at first - obviously I'd moved my bag elsewhere, because I knew it had been between my feet, and no-one sat next to me, so I must simply be confused. I'm good at losing things, ask any member of my family. But Felix saw me put it down, so it must be around. Eventually we worked out what had happened. Someone sat behind me and pulled it from beneath me to them and wandered off.

My first port of call, after reporting the loss, was a very very nice bar for a very very large G&T. Then I pulled out more knitting. (What? You don't have spares?) The flight from SFO to LA was swift, and didn't prepare us for the horror that awaited us. It turns out that United overbook their flights and one girl had been waiting for 6 days for an available seat, despite having already paid to be on the flight. Luckily, I had more knitting - the Prismatic Scarf using two balls of Noro Silk Garden, which I didn't really start for a good ten hours because I fell asleep while they doing the safety speech. Good thing we didn't crash...

Landed in Sydney early morning and had to transfer to Melbourne, so I was a bit worried about my carry on luggage with the second round of knitting in it. Check this out:















Me, knitting on the flight from Sydney to Melbourne. Apparently chunky plastic needles are fine. Who knew?

So we're back for good, and just in time for the Melbourne heatwave, Round 1 (Round 2 is this weekend). As you can imagine, I fared badly with Felix just cruising through. Gotta tell you, I'm so glad I'm back.