I had hoped to write to you earlier about my knitting adventures in Scotland a few weeks ago. I really had a blast up there. Two days after I returned from Edinburgh, however, I flew to Copenhagen where I managed to get really sick. Being really sick while on a business trip is not a jolly experience. Teaching all day and staying in a hotel when you are sick is bad enough, but it is more so when your husband is in Egypt visiting the pyramids. This did not put me in a blogging mood.

So, let’s go back to the Edinburgh portion of this story, which was excellent fun. I was there to attend the Wooly Good Festival. A bunch of knitting friends from Ravelry were planning on being there, and I thought it would be fun to go and meet up with them in person. I had booked tickets to the event back before I flew to Johannesburg in February, but I somehow neglected to book myself into a hotel or to buy train tickets. A few days beforehand, I realised that I needed to get organised. I put up a note on Ravelry, asking for a recommendation for a hotel near the event.

I then received a note from Sara, inviting me to stay with her and her husband, Richard. I had never met Sara before, so I was a bit concerned about taking her up on the offer. She wrote to me with a (very long) list of all of the knitters who had stayed with them in the past; it seems that her home is a halfway house for wayward knitters. As it turned out, Sara and Richard were lovely and I had a great time. On the Friday evening, they hosted a party for a group of knitters:

I knew all of these women through Ravely, but had only previously met two or three of them, so it was a delight to spend time with them. They were also great enablers at the festival, and it was fun to shop and gab and commune with knitters. I feel very privileged to be part of such a nice community. I think I was relatively modest with my purchases, buying four skeins of yarn, a knitting journal, a felted necklace and a few odds and ends:

I am chagrined to say that I went to Edinburgh and didn’t do anything but hang out with knitters and buy yarn. It really is a gorgeous city, and it has been over a decade since I was last there. I did manage to get in a few photos of the city as I was leaving to catch my train home:

Doug, in the meantime, spent a week in Cairo. He was busy giving talks and attending meetings, but he did manage to get to both the old and new museums, and to visit the pyramids and wander through some of the old sections of the city. He was last in Cairo in 1975, and it has changed a bit (as has Doug).

The long Easter weekend is here, and we are relaxing after our travels. I have finished one knitting project, and almost finished a second one. Stay tuned to this space for a full report.