Knitting

This evening I had my first knitting session with Lesley, a wonderful British woman who lives here in Sooke with her husband Gordy. Lesley sells her felted hats and bags around town and is very talented with her work. And lucky me, she is going to teach me how to make a felted hat.

Let me just say that Lesley and Gordy are the cutest and sweetest people ever! I believe they are both retired...I'm not sure what their professions were, but Gordy carves beautiful wooden sculptures and is a musician in disguise. One minute he was playing a little diddy on a wooden flute and the next minute he was playing the guitar and singing songs about the Georgia pines (making me nice and homesick for my Piedmont trees...oh man, I have so much to say about the feeling of knowing what trees surround you and what a sense of place that evokes...but that would be a major digression.) He even gave me a penny whistle so that when I'm alone in my trailer I can practice becoming a grand penny whistle musician.

Lesley was very excited to have me come knit with her...apparently she's been waiting her whole life to find someone to knit with! So we drank tea and knitted while watching the "log" on TV. Yes, that's right a fireplace on TV. HA! I didn't know that actually happened in real life. Lesley says that when there is nothing good on the telly they just turn it to the "log" - channel 50. Is that not awesome?! At times, there was even a hand that reached in and probed the indestructible log that hadn't changed shape in two hours. All the while, Gordy talked about one thing or the other...comments like "I bet a lot of kids are nicknamed 'peanut' down there in Georgia." And then Lesley would roll her eyes and tell him to shush! "She's counting her stitches!" she'd say in her British accent. "Shush is my middle name around here" Gordy would reply. The whole time I was internally beaming with how cute the two of them were.

When it was time for me to go they had put together a bag full of fresh baked cookies and banana bread (which according to Lesley I need some "marge" to put on it)...along with a felted "knitting" bag made by Lesley, my penny whistle, and a bunch of tea light candles...cause Gordy has a ton..."a bag of 100 for only $5."

All I have to say is that I smiled the entire way home. There are some damn beautiful people in this world.

On an entirely different and not as beautiful note - I am going to start adding my rat count to the bottom of each entry along with the number of times I've been pecked by chickens.

Rat count: 2 and a mouse
Chicken pecks: 5 (maybe this means I look tasty) - and one of those five drew blood.