A day out of time

6.30pm Tuesday - Arrive home. All I want to do is write. Dinner preparation gets in the way - including the inevitable "What the hell am I going to cook today?". Decide on White Fish Curry sans courgettes (they haven't grown yet). Three-quarters of an hour later, I finally get to sit down and pour out the words inside me. So, what have I got to write about?

What I did on my holiday

In his Discworld novel, Interesting Times, Terry Pratchett's character, Two Flower, causes a revolution by publishing a book about his travels in foreign lands called "What I Did On My Holidays". Mine is much less dramatic and could just as easily be titled: What I did on my anniversary, since I spent that day on holiday, three weeks ago. Only, it wasn't about celebrating the anniversary - that was coincidental - for me the day was about yarn and gardening, a long lunch with DH and a friend, and a whole lot of laughs.

I got YARN!:


More skeins of Lisa Souza's Sock! in Wild Things, Ecru and Black Purple. I collected these from the local Royal Mail Sorting Office first thing in the morning. The postman had tried to deliver them on the Tuesday but couldn't get the parcel into our letterbox.

And two bright green PRESENTS!:

I bought the blue Cascade Heritage Paints yarn from Tama via Ravelry and she surprised me by putting two skeins of her hand dyed sock yarn in the package. The colours are stunning. I was in the garden, earthing up the potatoes, when DH brought the package out. My hands were covered in dirt so I demanded he open it for me and then gawped at the yarn as it glowed. It took ages to scrub the soil off before I could touch it.

DH and I took the day off because we had audience tickets to the filming of QI. Filming started at 7pm but to guarantee our admission, we had to be queued up by 5.30pm. That would have meant leaving work mid-afternoon, so we decided to take the lazy option and stay home for the day. We met a friend for lunch on the Southbank near the studios. There are dozens of restaurants along the river bank near Royal Festival Hall, each sharing a view like this:


QI is like no other comedy program on television. The focus is not on telling jokes; QI is a quiz show hosted by Stephen Fry where the aim is not necessarily to give the right answer but to give the most interesting answer. (QI = Quite Interesting.) The four competitors are all well known actors or comedians. We had Alan Davies, Graham Norton, Dara O'Briain and David Mitchell.

It was like eavesdropping on a group of friends chatting in the pub. They talked, cracked jokes and topped each other's stories for nearly three hours. The comedy was very gentle and affectionate. They were incredibly funny and very knowledgeable, answering questions on the theme of genius. They really enjoyed themselves and the audience. It was a brilliant end to a memorable day.

- Pam