Life's a Stitch

Another requirement for a decent vacation is a good book. I brought along "Eat, Pray and Love" an autobiographical account of one woman’s year of transformation; an excellent read by Elizabeth Gilbert. In one chapter she talks about declaring a major for your life. This trip I declared eating and knitting my majors with a minor in physical therapy. Same studies as at home, but at a much better campus.

It was also a good opportunity for people watching. We dubbed people with characteristic names. There was Gandalf, the tall bearded man who paraded around in his long dark hooded bathrobe. And the Snow Queens, two elegant German women, probably sisters, with vanilla white soft serve hair piled on top of their heads. When they smiled, it melted all images of iciness. I wondered what names they would have given us. Probably three of the seven dwarves would have fit – E was Sleepy, L was the older wise Doc and I was Happy as I assume my laugh probably attracted a few glances. As a group we were all Dopey, mainly due to the language differences.

One day, while in the heart shaped swimming pool (did I mention that the fried eggs at breakfast were also heart shaped?), we heard the familiar rhythm of American English. We met Shannon and Ed, a couple who were finishing a 15 month stint of work in Piestany and were enjoying Valentine’s weekend at the spa hotel. They had had the opportunity to work in several countries and Shannon told us "I can point in 120 different languages." Lovely Shannon, also a knitter, contributed to the success of our trip. On our day off (Did you get that? A day off from spa treatments? E, L and I had a saying to cover such indulgences, "Suffer B__ch," I only abbreviate it to avoid weird Google searches). Oh yes, Shannon. She had a car and took us off campus to visit two nearby towns. Just like in college, sometimes you were able to hook up with a ride to broaden your horizons. Thank you, Shannon.

The surrounding geography consisted of gentle rolling hills with low mountains in the background. You’d be riding along and poof! There would be a rocky cliff, rising right off the road, with a castle on top.Castles that imprisoned interesting people like "the Blood Queen," who killed all the virgins for some seemingly good reason that only she understood:

Enough. I’ve made up for my lack of posts with length of post. You know how it is when you come back from vacation. The world and work and such, keep going and producing tasks for you in your absence. I’ve had to play serious catch up. And to keep this as a knitting blog I give you some knitting content. Besides the Lead or Follow Scarf, I also started an Irish Hiking Scarf in Elsebeth Lavold angora and a Vintage Velvet Scarf, from Scarf Style, with my two remaining clearance Annie Blatt kits: