Yarns!

I only ordered Saturday night, so sock yarn from Curious Yarns was a surprise arrival this morning (I'm exceedingly grateful to hobbitblue for pointing the site out). Soft, beautiful skeins. Plus the cute little animal stitch markers. And sweets in amongst the wrapping: Looby Loo, having admired the Candy yarn I've bought to do socks for her, took a sweet off to school and left Biggle-the-Cellophane-and-Plastic-Bag-Addict the wrapping. So all were happy. (Well I'm not sure M was entirely pleased to have his beard stroked with a skein of wool. But I had to share.)

Such a lovely package all round. It's made me feel more like salvaging stuff and starting anew. So, I've found a box (not hard, since I seem to acquire them), ex-Culpepper's I think, and I've dusted off my favourite needlecase, my scissors keep with my mother's needlework scissors, the little bag of safety pins. I've put a circle of felt into the bottom of the box the stitch markers came in and added my first three to the new ones. The result is neat, portable and mostly stuff I've embroidered myself.

The box is not full. What else should I add for temporary, easy access for embroidery, knitting, and mending of clothes?

Blair's what?

From the The Independent's emailed round up of the papers, Paper Chase:

Blair’s alley resigns, again

So that'll leave the opposition streets ahead, then. Or will NuLabour find new avenues to explore? Will Antonionionio take the long and winding road....

Ah, cut that squawking.

Well, I would, but the illiteracy continues.

Blunkett’s problems over failing to declare paid work as director of DNA Bioscience had increasingly been rebounded to Tony Blair, who up until yesterday, had stood by his long-time alley. But the resignation was just the first incident in a dark day that ended with Blair nearly surviving a Commons revolt against anti-terror laws.

See, yet more, alleys. Surely not blind ones.

Then there's "been rebounded to", a construction entirely novel to me. Not one I'd want to meet again, not even in a dark alley.

And what's this about "nearly surviving". He did survive, didn't he?. He almost failed to survive, maybe. But survive, he did (sadly, some may say).

Then there's this:

What do we make of the blind minister who overcame humble roots only to have his personal life drug through the headlines? What about that personal life anyways?

Drug? Dragged, I believe, is the standard form. It might be a stylistic preference, but "anyways" strikes me as too colloquial, too mock self-deprecating, certainly not the language you'd expect in a national broadsheet (I know it's gone tabloid, but it still thinks it's the at quality end of the market).

And meanwhile at the cut-price end of the airline industry:

Michael O’Leary said Ryanair, the second biggest international carrier in the world, gave away about a quarter of its sears least year....

That'll be burned into the minds of its customers then.

Dear me.