Daily Craft - Yarnbombing FTW!

Somebody on Ravelry posted a link to this today and it was just too good not to share.  Not sure if any of you are familiar with the concept of "yarn bombing".  It's essentially a crafty twist on graffiti and street art.  Instead of the medium being paint or chalk, yarn bombing involves wrapping knit pieces onto public items - trees, railings, benches, statues etc. 

Of everything I've seen so far though, this Olympic themed yarn bombing that's just popped up in the U.K. really takes the gold medal!  This piece is 150 ft long and represents the various Olympic sports, each with their own knit athlete.  The sheer detail that has gone into this is quite incredible, and even more amazing is that it was left there anonymously!  I know it takes me a couple of weeks to find the time to finish up a 5ft scarf, so either this was one incredibly talented and dedicated individual, or there is some kind of knitter conspiracy that I would love to know about! 

I highly recommend checking out the full article for more detailed photographs.  I hope they find a way to preserve this so it can be enjoyed by many for years after the London Olympics have come and gone.

Courtesy of dailymail.co.uk

Daily Travels - Time to recap

It seems like only a couple of days ago that I left for England, but I'm back already!  My trip was a good one and I got to enjoy all the things that I'd been looking forward to, so I think we'll consider it a great success.  :)  Good news is that I'm not really suffering too bad from jetlag, although I've woken up at 4:30am the last two nights for no reason. 

The flight home was probably the most dramatic flight I've ever been on in my 3 decades of flying.  We were delayed leaving Heathrow due to a passenger being removed from the plane last minute (for reasons unknown to me), and shortly after getting up in the air, an elderly gentleman a few rows ahead of me started having medical issues.  Fortunately, there were 2 doctors on board who tried to treat him as best as they could, but it was decided that we needed to stop in Iceland to get him to a hospital.  The worst part being that he was traveling alone, and didn't speak English.  I can't imagine being abandoned at a hospital in a foreign country without being able to communicate well.  I will say that the Virgin Atlantic staff were pretty amazing about the whole thing and I'm confident that they took care of him once we were on the ground.  I guess I can add Iceland to the list of places I've been, even if it was just on the tarmac in the dark!

I'm weeding through a couple hundred photos right now, which I'll be sharing over the course of the next few days. 

My parents have a condo on the river in Manchester's city center.  I wanted to grab a couple shots from the balcony and was greeted by wonderfully stormy skies with a hint of blue.

Meet Bianca (my parents' little princess).  She likes to travel so pretty much goes everywhere with them.

We took an afternoon to head onto the Snake Pass in Derbyshire and promptly found snow.  The conditions up there get pretty treacherous for driving so I was happy the roads were clear, although we were traveling slowly just in case.

We ended our drive at the Ladybower Reservoir, which provides water to several cities in the North.  Unfortunately it was raining so we didn't really get out and walk around, but I was perfecting the art of photography out of the window of a moving car without getting my camera lens too wet!

 

Next post, I'll be taking you on our trip to North Wales...

Daily Travels - Off I go

Tomorrow I leave for my trip home to see my parents.  I managed to use my interns wisely to get nice and ahead of the game at work, my green card is here (yay!), all my clothing is washed and ready to be packed, the finances are sorted and overall I'm feeling more prepared than usual!  I haven't traveled without my husband for in years, and especially not for such a long period of time, so I know I'm going to have separation anxiety from him (and, of course, baby cat Deuce).  It'll be nice to see my parents though.

I'm looking forward to....

- Mom's home cooked meals!  Over the years, I've tried to replicate things that my mom cooks, but hers is always better.  She's already planning to make moussaka for me (yum) and has been asking me for a couple of weeks to think of some of my other favorites.
- Indian food!  It's not that I can't get good Indian food in California.  In fact, there's a couple of restaurants that I think are great.  It's still better in England though.
- Fish and chips!  Of course.  There's nothing like eating a big piece of battered cod out of a nice greasy wad of paper.
- Stocking up on chocolate!  Cadburys, Galaxy, Aero, Yorkies....I could go on.  (Can you tell that there's a food theme going on here?)
- Photography!  I miss old buildings.  We're going to be taking a trip to North Wales and I can't wait to be snapping photos of castles.  It seems that the standard in Los Angeles is to tear down old things and I miss wandering around centuries of history.
- Treasure hunting!  OK, well in the not so literal sense.  I'm wondering what is hiding in my room at home.  Time to go through it and find some things I've forgotten existed.  :)

Pretty much the only things I'm not looking forward to are 22 hours round trip on an airplane and really cold weather.  It's an opportunity to wear those handknits that I don't always get to wear in So Cal at least.

Anyway, I'll be popping in here to say hi if I get a chance, but otherwise, I'll have lots to share when I get back.  Happy travels!

Daily Travels - Visiting home

As some of you may have picked up on, I originally hail from England.  My brother and I live in California, but my parents are still holding down the fort on the other side of the pond.  Admittedly, I'm a terrible daughter and haven't been back home to visit in a long time (think 4-ish years) and after husband lost his job, it didn't seem like we were going to be able to make it back home this year either.  Then, mom calls me to say that they are officially knocking down and rebuilding the house at home, so it's now or never in terms of going back to my childhood home one last time.  This led to a bit of a dilemma though seeing as there's no way that we could afford 2 airfares home and, if he's travelling with me, husband also won't be around to claim his unemployment.  On the other hand, if by some miracle he finds a job in the next few weeks, he also can't take off for 10 days nor would he want to delay a start date.  It's going to be weird, but we decided the best thing for me to do is go without him.  I seriously don't recall the last time we spent that much time apart - certainly not since we got married.  I just hope Deuce keeps him in check while I'm gone and that he remembers to attempt to not let the dishes pile up.  :)

I would like to give a little shout out, however, to Expedia's bargain fares for making the airfare vaguely reasonable at least.  I remember the days when a flight to Heathrow was $500 (on the high end) with Virgin Atlantic, you could drink all you want on the plane for free, and the food was pretty decent.  This time though, my search for flights were coming up in the $800+ range.  While I was busy lamenting the price, an Expedia bargain fare popped up for $710.  The problem is that it doesn't tell you what time of day the flight is, or the airline, until after you've booked.  Seeing as neither factor was of particular importance to me (although I'll admit I had my fingers crossed that the airline wouldn't be AA or United), I went for it.  Turns out, I'm flying with Virgin with flight times around what I would have picked anyway.  Dear Expedia, thank you for being awesome.  Now I can relax knowing that I'm with an airline that has good in-flight entertainment and (hopefully) better food on offer than a stale bagel or soggy sandwich.  Plus, that $100-something I saved means I have more funds to spend on stuffing my suitcase with Cadbury's chocolate.  Can't wait for some good Indian food either.  Just delightful!