Fruit on the sock tree.

At last I have finished the Jaywalker socks. I really like them, but I have to say that they didn't please me in the making. It is a good pattern, but not simple enough that I can knit mindlessly and read at the same time - which is what I reckon socks are for - for me at any rate. So it will be back to the boring ones, and have the interest in the yarn, for future socks.

Things are really pleasing me in the garden - this peony for instance.

And the Forget-me-nots.

And in somebody else's garden a Tamarisk. This one is for you Vivienne since you said you had not knowingly seen one in flower. I have loved them from before I had any idea what they looked like - just the name does it for me. I also forgot to say how good the Alexanders were looking all along the Norfolk roadside a couple of weeks ago.

Every change is marked by a biscuit.

Chocolate Viennese and Cornish Fairings. These are what I shall be taking to work this week, since it is the tradition in the place where I work to take biscuits when there is the slightest excuse, and if they are home made, so much the better.

For the past year I have been working a few hours a week in the sub-post office which is in the back of the bookshop/stationers/pharmacy where I had spent the last eight years plying my trade. The Post Office is being closed, despite it being a thriving , profitable and throughly convenient establishment, and in the face of loud and insistent complaints from the locals. Don't talk to me about "consultation" : that is just a euphemism for "We spit on you."

The little town is split into two halves by the railway, and a pretty steep hill. There is another Post Office in the other half of town, and that is the one beside the sorting office, and in a bigger building, so if they were determined that we should only have one, that was always going to be the one that they kept. Never mind the fact that a lot of the old people will find it difficult to get to, and that there are so many shops close to us, plus the Library and Health Centre just around the corner, on the flat.

The Post Office in general is supposed to be losing a lot of money - well in our town, both offices are making money for them, so where is the sense in closing a profitable concern? As things stood, we were effectively subsidising some of the rural ones which can never turn a profit, but are needed, nonetheless.

So I am going to be completely retired, along with a clutch of friends and workmates, and that is why the biscuits. I somehow think they are going to taste of sand and ashes.

A good week for endings.

This shirt has had a rather long gestation period. My friend had a holiday in Canada and brought the fabric back as a present. I have been looking at it often and been unable to make my mind up what to do. She has said, every so often, "Cut that material out yet?" Then I realised that it was the intensity of the colour that was worrying me, and that what it needed was something to offset that - white collar and cuffs perhaps? Yes, and it has turned out very well.
Then there is the green linen-mix sweater. As I predicted, I have had enough of it; never want to see it again; cannot imagine why I ever wanted to make such a useless garment. I do think that it has turned out a bit on the large side, but I can forsee that there will come a day in the winter when that is precisely what I want. And it is green - honest! Look here and you will see a picture that shows the colour much more accurately.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this post-finishing dislike of the work is rather akin to the small-time baby blues - not the full blown depression that is so cruel to many, but the little glitch of anti-climax that most new mums pass through - all that discomfort, pain and effort and what do I get - something else that just wants to be loved. So I will like the sweater/ baby/new house/man: just give me a few moments!

Didn't we have a loverly time (the day we went to Bungay)

For a start the flowers in the car park were very smiley. And then, they have a CASTLE.


It is quite a small castle, but I suspect there was more of it in times gone by. They must love it because it is in the process of having some serious reinforcement at the moment, so we couldn't poke about inside.


Then there is the Butter Cross - no cross on it, and no butter that we could discern, but it is a pretty shape, and set among a lovely hotch potch of old buildings.


What a nice town Bungay is. I want to say a sweet little town but that sounds so arrogant and patronising, but it is a place that is good to be in. Shops - a wool shop, a quilting shop (so interesting haberdashery) at least one proper butcher's, greengrocer's and bakery. Plus a wonderful old-fashioned draper's crammed to the ceilings with good stuff.

All our purchases came in paper bags, except for Vivienne's loaf of bread which was wrapped in tissue paper - I had forgotten that was what used to be done!

Oh, and I had to buy a few bits - the fabric just spoke to me for a summer skirt. Yarn - I don't need to say, but just take a close look - who could resist those little ten gramme balls of Opal. There was a jar of them like sweeties, so, like sweeties I bought them. These sweeties won't rot my teeth!