Don't Panic Mr Mannering!

Are you as underwhelmed about Swine Flu as I am? Looking back over the last four weeks, it seems like the proverbial storm in a teacup. It seems to have morphed into a damp squib.

I have a theory about why Swine Flu isn't as virulent outside Mexico as it appears to be within it. It's quite simple and doesn't involve higher level genetics or virology. My theory boils down to this: Mexico is a poor country without a nationalised health service. To see a doctor or be treated in the ER, you have to pay. Therefore, I reckon that only the sickest of those infected sought out treatment in Mexico, the ones who were already at Death's door. Following on from that logic, it means that for the 100-odd deaths in Mexico, hundreds of thousands of people were infected with Swine Flu and have recovered from it. They weren't so ill that they would spend their hard earned dollars on a doctor's visit.

It isn't SARS. It isn't Bird Flu. It isn't that virulent. Journalists of the world should get over it. The rest of us should just employ good hygene, avoid touching our faces and washing our hands often.

- Pam

Pattern: Fingerless Mittens

It seems rather ironic to be writing about fingerless mittens on the hottest day of the year so far, but less than two weeks ago, I was desperate! My office has two temperatures: winter icy cold, or summer boiling hot. The cold radiates inwards to my desk from the outside wall. Even when the heating is on, it does little to counteract the drafts.

For years, I've had a pair of commercially made, acrylic [spit] fingerless gloves in my desk drawer, which I wear as a last resort. Because they have fingers, they make my fingers feel fat and heavy, and it is much harder to type accurately. When I finished the Berrocco socks, I decided to make these from the leftovers:-



Ingredients:-

35 grams leftover sock yarn - 4 ply or fingering weight*
2.5mm double pointed needles ("DPNs")

Garter Stitch Rib:-

Row 1: knit all stitches.
Row 2: *K2, P2. Repeat from * to end of row.

Methodology:-

1. Cast on 56 stitches and divide them over 4 DPNs: needle 1, 10 stitches; needles 2 and 3, 20 stitches each; needle 4, 8 stitches. Ensure the cast on row isn't twisted and join the yarn by knitting from needle 1 onto needle 4.
2. Place a marker at the start of your first row (I suspend a row counter from there).
   
3. Work in K2, P2 rib for 10 rows.
4. Rows 11 - 51. Work in Garter Stitch rib, ending with a first row.
5. Row 52: commence on the thumb hole. At the marker, turn back on yourself and work as if knitting flat. *K2, P2 until you get back to the marker.
6. Row 53: turn the work and knit until you get back to the marker.
7. Repeat rows 52 and 53 eight times.
8. Row 68: joining row. Slip the marker from the left needle to the right needle. Knit into the back of the first stitch on the left needle, taking your yarn over the needle instead of in the usual way, under the needle. You want to make this stitch as tight as possible. K1, *P2, K2. Work from * to end of row.
9. Continue in garter stitch rib for 9 more rows, until row 77.
10. Work in K2, P2 rib for 10 more rows (86 rows total). Cast off in rib.
11. Weave in your ends and you're done.
    

- Pam



* Thanks to the postal scale at work, I know each mitten weights exactly 16 grams. I didn't quite have enough yarn so used a couple of grams of Lisa Souza's Sock! in Ecru to finish off each mitten.

Stepping back in time

Tonight, my mind is on events of nearly 70 years ago. For most of the last two hours, I have been a lifetime away, focused on the day to day events of the first year of the Second World War. In reality I'm in the middle of North Lincolnshire, staying at my regular hotel, on my monthly visit to Site, but it doesn't feel that way.

I have been attempting to finish Simon Garfield's excellent collection of diaries from the Second World War, We Are at War. I know I've written about it before, but I have to comment again about the power of the writing. The diarists are so eloquent as they chronicle their personal War: the privations; the sky-rocketing food prices; the crippling taxes; their fears over being bombed and the possible invasion. The War was hard on the civilian population, particularly those who were struggling to begin with. Once again, I find myself marvelling at how people survived and how they "made do".

I was so completely absorbed tonight that it took an effort to refocus my mind on my life, on the present day, on the waiter who brought my drink and the waitress who cleared the plates away. I'm looking forward to reading the other two books in this series: Private Battles, covering 1941 to 1945, and Our Hidden Lives, covering the post-War period 1946 to 1948.

- Pam


(If you're curious as to why this book wasn't finished months ago, the answer is simple: I don't get much reading time at home. It's too noisy or there are other things demanding my attention. I tend to do most of my reading when I'm travelling for work.)

Don't you hate it when this happens?

I have been knitting for 36 years, since I was seven. For 35 of those years, I worked from the outside of the ball inwards, unravelling the ball as I went. My mum tried to convince me to work the other way, from the centre out (her argument was that it kept your yarn clean), but she failed.

Last summer, Kate convinced me to try doing it the other way, working from the centre outwards and, also, to role centre-pull balls. Her logic was unassailable - if you work from the centre outwards, the ball doesn't need space to roll around so I wouldn't need to take my ball of sock yarn out of my small sock-knitting-purse. Fewer chances for it to roll off and get dirty.

Yesterday, I started knitting my latest pair of socks. And was rapidly reminded why I'd given up on centre-ball-outwards knitting 36 years ago:

Two rows in, I tugged on my yarn and hauled out a huge tangle from the centre of the ball. It took 50 rows to knit out. I'm now at the 73rd row and I'm still fighting tangles.

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

- Pam




PS: It's Opal's Harry Potter sock yarn in the Draco colourway.

Frugal Friday - the Rice Trick

It's fair to say that we eat a lot of rice. Considering the number of curries I cook, you probably aren't that surprised. (I can hear certain readers of this blog going "Yeah, and....?" even as I type. Bear with me, guys.) Have I ever mentioned the "rice trick" to you before?

The Rice Trick only works with white rice; the variety doesn't matter. It is simple, saves fuel and stops you having soggy rice. You'll need rice, boiling water and a saucepan with a well-fitting lid. This is the Rice Trick:-

1. Next time you're cooking rice, measure the quantity needed into a measuring cup or jug. Make a note of where it comes on the jug. Tip it into the saucepan and then measure out double the quantity of boiling water, adding that to the saucepan.
   
2. Cover it with the lid. Bring it to the boil and, keeping it just below the point where it will boil over, boil it for two minutes. Use a timer.
   
3. Switch off the burner and let it sit there for the next 15 minutes. (Again, use a timer.) Do not lift the lid until the timer goes off for the 15 minutes.
4. Take off the lid, fluff up the rice with a fork and serve.

And there you have it. Freshly cooked rice that isn't soggy. And you've only used a quarter of the usual quantity of gas/electricity to cook it.

Note 1: Always use the proportions: 2 water to 1 rice.
Note 2: This doesn't work with brown rice. Even if you boil it for longer. I think the outer layer is too hard for it to soften sufficiently without the aid of heat.

- Pam

Sock it to me!

It's hard to believe that it was only three years ago when I started knitting my first ever pair of socks. At last count, I think I've now knit 25 pairs! And given two-thirds of them away.

And yet, it all started so unpromisingly. I was SO not a fan. Aunty Glady (my honourary non-grandmother) had knitted me a white, lacy pair of knee-highs when I was small. Which I wore once. They itched. The ribbing was tight. The purl ridges left painful indents in my feet under the spot where I laced up my school shoes.

More recently, when other knitters wrote about how great hand-knitted socks were, I had a hard time trying to understand their appeal. (See previous experience, above.) Surely they'd be too thick to wear with regular shoes? Also what was it with all the colour? Didn't coloured socks go out with the Eighties? How could I wear them to work? (90% of my socks were basic black - great for work when worn with loafers under a trouser suit and perfectly OK for the rest of the time. I think the rest were denim blue.)

And then there was the actual "knitting socks" part. Somewhere I'd heard that turning a heel was really difficult (that bit of misinformation came from Terry Pratchett*). Also, I'd had a bad experience with DPN's doing the v-neck ribbing on my first sweater, back when I was 11 or 12, and I didn't want to go back there ever again.

Finally, the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Rules book convinced me to have a go. We were going to Spain for five days in May 2006 and I wanted some knitting to take along. I knew from bitter experience that, in a hot country, anything that rests in your lap will make you feel hot, sticky and uncomfortable in very short order. (Growing up in Oz, I did crochet, embroidery or tatting in the summer, and then only if I could find somewhere to sit where my hands were cool enough not to be swollen or sweaty.) So I needed something small to take along and sock-knitting fitted the bill.

After a fruitless browse in the Reading branch of John Lewis for something labelled "sock yarn", I resorted to Google, typed "sock yarn" into the search field, ticked the UK checkbox and crossed my fingers as I hit enter. What I wanted was someone to hold my hand and tell me the correct needle size to use for whatever yarn I'd buy plus the correct quantity to purchase; what I found was Angel Yarns, who sold me an Opal Sock Knitting Kit complete with a set of Addi DPNs. (I think the Addi's were a consolation prize from their customer services department because my first choice of colourway (something blue) wasn't available. They also sent a pair of teddy-bear needle huggers.)



I didn't knit until we got to Spain. Casting on, I felt nervous; a new sensation for me as a knitter (I've been knitting since I was seven and tackled lace and stranded colourwork fearlessly as a teenager). But I gritted my teeth and worked through the first half-a-dozen rows with the DPNs before concluding that "Hey, knitting with DPN's isn't so bad after all. I can do this!". The self-patterning yarn intrigued me. I left Spain with one of these:

And I was hooked!

I can't say that first pair are the best I've ever made. The heel seems to go on forever (it's much too long) and I kitchener-stitched the toes the wrong way around so that there are purl stitches on the outside. Also, I had several lessons to learn about picking up the gusset stitches so that there wouldn't be a hole in the corner (look carefully and you'll see the hole), or down the sides. And they're slightly too big, but they're mine. I wear them ocasionally when my other handknitted socks are in the wash. They're like a walking demonstration of my skills.


Just as a comparison, here are the latest socks I've knitted, using the Berrocco Sox yarn that MOI sent me.

See how far I've come? These have a French/reinforced heel. Also, I've learned some tricks about matching up the pattern repeats that would never have occured to me back in the early days.
Once again, MOI, thank you for the yarn. The socks are lovely.

And no, I haven't a clue where all that guff about "turning a heel is difficult" came from. It is easy.

- Pam


*Terry Pratchett is a knitter. And a spinner. Yarn Forward interviewed him last year.

Good-bye Old Friend

I was putting the rice on for dinner on Tuesday night when it happened. I'd measured the 1.5 cups of rice, poured it into the pot and was measuring/adding the 3 cups of boiling water when it happened.... There was a popping noise. I looked down and saw that my 18 year old cup measure had cracked!

You can just see it on this photo.


(No, it's not the handle. DH broke that years ago.)

We've been together a long time. I've used that cup measure almost every night for measuring out rice. And there have been numerous cakes and pizzas made along the way.

Good-bye old friend.

- Pam

In the "You learn something new every day" department

My car insurance bill just got £60 cheaper per annum. Why? Because I changed DH's status from "honoured to drive the Toy when Pam feels like it" (a.k.a. "Named Driver") to "He signed on the dotted line so can't get rid of her that easily" (a.k.a. "Spouse").

It had never occurred to me to even mention it to the car insurers. We've lived together for 9 years, since before I purchased the Toy, and I didn't think we'd get a discount just because we formalised matters nearly six years ago.

I wonder what else we can save?

- Pam

A huge "Thank You"!

is due to one of the most generous people I have met on the internet. Thank you, MOI, for the wonderful sock yarn which arrived on Saturday. It is truly an amazing present.

Thank you, again.

Pam

Living your principles

Twenty years ago, Australia hosted a conference about pollution and climate change. In multiple venues relayed via video link, scientists met and discussed the implications of global warming. My flatmate, Marg, took me along to the evening, open session at the Dallas Brookes Hall.

Looking back over the distance of twenty years, it seems as if global warming has always been with us, always been an issue. And yet..... I can trace my knowledge to that evening. It was one of the bomb-shells dropped into my life that night. (The only other item I remember was the damage caused by dioxins in paper bleaching.) One day, I was in complete ignorance; the next... well, it was as if I'd been handed a live grenade to juggle and I didn't know what to do with it.

To be honest, I'm not sure many of us did back then. My own actions didn't seem to matter. The focus was about putting pressure on governments to face up to what was going to happen.

And yet, at the time I lived a fairly "green" lifestyle. I walked to work; I switched off the lights when I walked out of a room; I used the cold cycle to wash my clothes and hung them on a clothesline to dry. The one conscious change I made then was to buy unbleached, recycled paper products (why does anyone need toilet paper made from virgin wood pulp to wipe their bottom? Why??). I bought the "Green Consumer Guide" and read up about organic vegetables and cleaning products, then promptly forgot most of it and got on with the business of living.

Now, though, I wonder how I measure up. I wonder how far I've drifted from my first, passionately green principles.

We buy our vegetables from a local farmer, our meat from a butcher and the rest of our groceries from a supermarket. We live in your classic 1930's semi-detached house, which was last renovated in the 1970's. It has double glazed windows but needs cavity wall insulation. The central heating is old and hard to control (the boiler is on its last legs). I switch it off as early in the year as possible and rely on a the gas fire to warm the lounge in the evenings. We recycle glass, paper and plastic bottles. We wash and re-use plastic bags.


DH gets the bus to work. I drive long distances in a relatively low emission vehicle (the Toy clocks up 119 g/km).

(Note: For the best part of 10 years, I didn't have a car so took public transport to work. I only started driving to work when public transport became the more stressful option. If you've ever encountered London traffic, you're probably spluttering in shock by now but I had to go from South East London to West London at the mercy of 4 separate rail companies; to get to work required 3 changes of train and I was never sure, when I got to Paddington, from which platform my train would depart. Crawling passed the Elephant & Castle under my own steam was the more relaxing option. (If I worked up in London, I'd still go in by public transport, but working where I do - it's impractical both in time cost (I'd more than double my journey time) and in monetary cost (also double).) )

Oh, and for the record, I still wash my clothes in cold water and line dry them.

We're getting ready to do building work on the house. I daydream about photovoltic cells on the kitchen roof, a solar hot water system, and a small wind turbine attached to the chimney. The reality of our finances means that we will have to settle for more prosaic changes: the aforementioned cavity wall insulation; a new, energy-efficient boiler; a wood-fire stove to efficiently burn waste-wood and heat the house (added benefit - if the power goes out, we'll still have heating and cooking abilities). Maybe we should do a before-and-after green energy audit?

When I mention these things to colleagues/friends, some come back with the inevitable "Why bother?". I know that the actions DH and I take in our small corner of England don't have huge ramifications around the world. I know that they don't mean much ON THEIR OWN. But I also know that if EVERYONE makes "green" changes and cut down their food miles and their energy consumption, then perhaps we can make a difference. Every little action on my part does matter because it is the cumulative effect of all our actions that makes a difference.

Am I in a better or worse place than I was 20 years ago? I don't know. But I know that I won't stop trying.

- Pam (I'm getting this post in early for Earth Day.)

Book Review: We Are At War

This is just a quick post before bed-time. I'm at Site for the week; for once, I don't have any colleagues staying in the hotel with me. This means I got a chance to read over dinner. The book I'm reading at the moment: We Are At War, a collection of five diaries from the Mass Observation Project collected and edited by Simon Garfield.

(If you've never heard of Mass Observation, it was/is a social history project started in 1937 which aimed to record everyday life in Britain for future generations. The majority of participants answered surveys; a few submitted diaries.)

The book opens in 1939, just prior to the start of the Second World War and covers a little over a year in the lives of its diarists:-

• Pam Ashford - lives in Glasgow with her mother. Strong sense of fairness and common sense. Works in a shipping company and worries about her contacts in occupied Europe.
• Christopher Tomlin - lives in Preston on the North-West coast of England. Runs his own business selling stationery. When the war commences he is the financial support for his parents. He worries about dwindling sales, the massive hikes in taxes pushing up prices, how to pay the bills.
• Eileen Potter - works as a social worker in London. Responsible for evacuating children and mothers during the early stages of the war. Later, she is involved in planning for housing evacuees.
• Tilly Rice - mother of three. Lives in Surrey near where I used to work. Has nightmares about being bombed.
  
• Maggie Joy Blunt - writer. Very "chattering classes". Hospitable - seems to run an open house for her friends and family. Lives on the outskirts of London near Windsor. Comments on the political events of the day as well as everyday life and the war. Knitter.

The diary entries are woven to paint a canvas of the privations and fears they lived through. Their writing is compelling. I keep wanting to read their next entry and then the next and not wanting to stop. They speak openly and honestly about their lives, how they cope, the struggle to maintain normality. They chronicle the minutiae: Maggie Joy Blunt describes her embarrassment at living in her kitchen, laundry drying by the fire, knitting and the cat on her lap when a neighbour comes to call (characteristically, she brazens it out with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude).

I'm fascinated by World War 2 and life on the Home Front. This is one of those books that, on every page, leaves you wondering: how would I have coped? What would I have done in their circumstances? They are just ordinary people, like you and me, and yet they live bravely through some frightening and extra-ordinary times.

This book gets 10 out of 10.

- Pam

Happy Chocolate Festival Everybody

For the non-Christian, Easter is all about chocolate. No matter what you believe, it's hard to resist it's siren call. Easter eggs are everywhere.

We'll be visiting family and friends for the next few days and I'm taking along my Dad's absolute favourite chocolate: Coconut Rough. I've never seen it for sale in the UK, but if you're ever in Australia in winter, look for a branch of Haigh's Chocolate Shops - they'll sell you some. (They don't make it in summer because it melts too fast.)

Coconut Rough

375g chocolate, either drops or bars broken up (I use 50:50 70% dark chocolate : milk chocolate)
60g copha (pure distilled edible coconut oil, sold white and hard in a jar or bar)
3 cups of desiccated coconut

Method

1. Break the chocolate up into small chunks if necessary.
   
2. Line a couple of baking trays with non-stick/silicon paper.
   
3. In a bowl suspended over a saucepan of boiling water, melt the chocolate and the copha and stir well to combine.
4. Stir in the desiccated coconut until well incorporated. Switch off the heat.
5. Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto the lined baking trays. Refrigerate until hard. It makes 30+ generous dollops. Here are mine just before I put them in the fridge to harden.
   

Store in the fridge.

Enjoy!

- Pam

And in another instalment of our series, "Tales From the Motorway", PipneyJane knits whilst driving...

On my drive home this afternoon, I got to knit one-and-a-half rounds of my latest sock. To say I wa sitting in stop-start traffic, would be doing stop-start traffic a disservice. It was more like "stop-stop traffic". There was an accident on the M4 - a four car shunt (what a surprise?). It can't have occurred that much ahead of me; I was a mile away doing 70mph when I hit slam-on-your-brakes traffic and had to stop dead.

Fortunately, I always leave a lot of room between me and the car ahead. I'm a practitioner of the two-second-rule (i.e. when the car in front passes a stationary point, chant "Only a fool breaks the two second rule". If you are still chanting when you go past that point yourself, then you're driving too close).

I was more worried about the Porsche behind me, which was rapidly gaining. Anxiously, I flipped on the hazard lights and watched in the rear-view mirror as the driver reacted. Let's just say, I saw the whites of his eyes but our two cars didn't kiss.

We crawled along. We stopped. At one point, I switched off the engine, only to have to restarted it 20 seconds later to crawl along another 10 feet. Invoking Murphy's Law of Knitting on the Move*, I dug my knitting purse out of my hand bag and started work on DH's latest sock.


It worked a treat. I knitted 10 stitches before the car in front moved off. Put the sock down on the passenger seat. 15 feet later I was stationery again. Picked the sock up. Knitted 5 more stitches. The car in front moved again. Held the sock carefully in one hand and drove the next 10 feet using the other to hold the steering wheel. Stopped again. Knitted another 7 stitches before the car in front moved again. Put the sock in my lap and then decided it was safer on the passenger seat. Drove 15 feet. Stopped again. Knitted for 2 stitches. Started moving again. Rinse and repeat for about 200 yards.

One hundred stitches later, I got passed the accident to the clear road beyond.

- Pam (Yet another reason I carry some knitting with me everywhere)



*Murphy's Law of Knitting on the Move: just as you get settled down to knit, you'll reach your stop. This is a variant on Murphy's Law of Knitting in Waiting Rooms, which states that you will just get to a complicated bit where everything is precarious and your name will be called for your appointment. In both cases, you have to shove everything back into your bag and rush off or risk losing out.

Living out of a suitcase

Once upon a time, I lived out of a gym bag. For a year or so after I met DH, I'd pack my bag on a Friday morning with whatever I thought I'd need for the weekend, put on my suit for work and head out for the next three days. In those days, when I was waiting for Dumbo to buy me out of the house we'd shared, I spent as little time at home as possible. I was gone from Friday morning to Sunday evening, every weekend. After work, I'd see DH ("DB" as he was then) virtually every evening, get home late and leave early.

Sometimes, I didn't get home at all. There was one memorable Thursday when, after donating blood, I nearly passed out in an Italian restaurant (note to self: don't drink red wine directly after giving blood it dilates the blood vessels too much). DH calmed down the waiter ("No, there is nothing wrong with the food. It's lovely. She's just given blood and feels faint."). I limped back to his place and crashed out. Not wanting to drive halfway across London and back in Friday evening traffic, I went out and bought myself a new 16-inch head gym bag and a weekend wardrobe. Some crafty shopping later, I got the bag, tennis shoes, jeans, 2 tee-shirts, a cardigan, underwear and toiletries for my £50 budget.


That gym bag survived until last year. I used it for long weekends away, overnight trips for work and, of course, trips to the gym. It pretty much died on a work trip to the Netherlands - the zipper tag ripped off and the contents crushed. That was the last straw. On the way home, I wandered the luggage shop at Schiphol checking out the carry-on bags and blanching at the price.

A couple of weeks later, I bought "Junior" for £10 from Tesco. It's a Relic small trolley case: 25L capacity, with an expandable front that adds another 10L; 46cm/18 inches high, 34cm/13.5 inches wide, 19cm/8 inches deep with an additional 5cm/2 inches available.

Not a huge case but, with planning, large enough to hold an entire week's clothes.



And a laptop.

Of course, packing such a small case for a week working away poses a challenge, but I'd rather a bag I can lift and carry easily than something larger. Here are my tricks:-

• Consider your travel clothes. Usually, I drive up on a Tuesday and go straight to the Site office; sometimes I've driven up on a Sunday afternoon/evening instead. Either way, whatever I'm wearing is part of the grander plan for my wardrobe for the rest of the week. On a Tuesday morning, I'll drive up in my suit, wearing my work shoes; on a Sunday, I'll wear my jeans, smart cardigan and trainers.
• Capsule wardrobes are your friends. The classic "capsule" is a suit jacket with matching trousers and skirt; if you're lucky, it'll be sold with a dress, too, or an alternative skirt. Recently, I tend to wear the suit from this post: charcoal grey with a pink pinstripe in the jacket and first pair of trousers, plain charcoal grey second set of trousers. I'll add a second "jacket" in the form of a black or grey smart cardigan, and alternate between the options.
  
• Think monochrome. Everything you pack/wear must go with everything else. My work wardrobe is built around grey and black suits. I add colour and contrast with blouses, t-shirts and finely knitted sweaters. Whatever I take to wear at Site must be wearable with either suit option.
• Think multi-purpose. The smart cardigan I'll wear in the office is also the cardigan I'll cuddle up in in the evenings and wear with my jeans on dress-down-Friday. The shoes I'll wear into the office have to go with both skirts and trousers. For my casual shoes, I'll pack my running trainers - in the hope I'll go for a run in the mornings.
• Think fabric. Knits don't hold creases, neither does crepe or wool flannel. I hate ironing anyway, so rarely wear stuff that needs it.
  
• Think slimline. It has to fold up small. Fitted clothes take up less space, too.
  
• Think small. Don't lug around huge bottles of shampoo or conditioner. If you don't like the regular hotel toiletries, buy 100ml travel-sized bottles and fill them up with your regular stuff. Or get samples of your favourite products - Clinique regularly have offers. I pack shampoo, conditioner, cleanser, toner, moisturiser, cotton wool pads, a wide-tooth comb, a razor for my legs, body lotion, crystal deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush and floss, all in a small toiletries bag. Here it is with my phone and makeup bag for size comparison.
  

• For makeup, again, go for samples where possible. Pack only the basics: you don't need 10 lipsticks, when you'll only wear one. Swap your regular makeup-base-plus-powder for an all-in-one compact.
• Keep some essentials in your travel case at all times. My spare phone charger lives in Junior, as does a couple of week's supply of thyroxin. That way, I can't leave home without them.
  
• Pack something to read and something to entertain you. I'll pack a book, a small knitting project (usually a sock), my MP3 player and, more recently, my personal laptop. One way or another, I won't be bored. The MP3 player and my travelling knitting project usually go in my handbag.
  

And my final piece of advice: remember, if you forget something, you can always buy it when you get there.

- Pam

Welcome Mr President

Since the President arrived in London on his first official visit on Tuesday, spotting the above bumper sticker on a car on the M4 seemed rather serendipitous. My only disappointment is that he flew into Stanstead Airport instead of RAF Northolt - it meant we couldn't attempt to spot Airforce One flying overhead.

- Pam