To date....

Much to catch up on.

Firstly, thanks to these who clicked on Hubby's test blog link. He wanted to gather some stats just to show his innocent young charges how easy it is for a blog owner to record all sorts of info about blog visitors, like where they had come from, what they read, how long they stayed etc etc. None of this is personal data per se, but it leaves footprints out there on the web. And where there are footprints, you can be tracked. Hubby says his students are often horrified when they find out just how visible they are out there. It's a good lesson to learn if you're going to be a sucess in a media industry.

(And just to reassure...Hubby was not using any specialist software other than the freebie type availible to anyone anywhere, so don't fear that you've now been the target for some sort of in depth probe.)

Other catchups...thanks to all who emailed or otherwise asked if I'm feeling all right. Seems my last post was a bit of a downer one? Well,we all have up days and down days, no? It's just that time of year, no? Roll on the spring.

Yesterday was an up-day though. I had arranged to meet up with Jean and Helen, two far more famous Edinburgh knitbloggers than I, to investigate the new branch of K1 Yarns that has opened in the last couple of weeks in Edinburgh. Lovely shop, with some real treats of exotic yarns rather than just the same old stuff. I often get asked by people planning a visit to Edinburgh if there's somewhere they can go to buy real Scottish yarns, or even just unusual UK yarns. There hasn't really been anywhere up till now, but K1 will fill this gap and more. Definately worth a visit...it's a beautiful shop, and Katherine the owner is lovely.

It was a real treat to meet Jean and Helen as well. It's a real quirk of the blogging world to be able to know someone's name, how many children they have, their names, often the cat's name, the fact that their car broke down last week and how they can't abide purple or whatever details about themselves they care to share on the web....but have never met them face to face. Then when you finally really meet this person or persons you have never set eyes on before, you end up nattering away like old friends (which indeed you are, virtually) without any of the constraints of meeting someone new. I've been in this situation several times since I started knitblogging and it never fails to amaze and amuse me. It was a biting cold day in Edinburgh yesterday though and Jean didn't feel too well, so it was a shorter visit than originally planned. We'll have to do it again soon, ladies, though this time somewhere a bit warmer!

Saturday was warm though which meant a lot of folk made it out to Haddington to the Haddington Spinners Open Day. This is a very informal event, with (normally) a big chattering circle of spinners, knitters, felters and what-have-you-ers doing lots of busy things, Scottish Fibres providing the shopping opportunity and lots of tea and home made cakes. The Poldrate mill was definately looking its best in the sun too. We had a lot of visitors too, and hopefully converted a few to spinning. One new person that visited was Woolypaws, whom I had "netted" on the web, lol. (It's a dangerous place out there, as I keep saying!) She brought along her new to her wheel for a quick once-over and her first lesson in wheel spinning. She turned out to be a natural spinner, so I'm sure we'll see more of her. I'm also particularly proud of myself in that I "enabled" another recent spinning convert to buy her first wheel at the Open day, a Louet Victoria from Scottish Fibres. Lovely wheel...no, I'm not intending to buy another wheel!

Last news is that SkipNorth 2008 starts this Friday. I've been to both previous SkipNorths so I know I'm going to have a great time meeting up with old friends, meeting new ones and talking non-stop about knitting and spinning for a straight three days, lol. For these that don't know it's run by Lixie and Nic, you're too late to book for this year but you should definately take note of the dates for next year.

I'll leave you with links to the shopping that took place at SkipNorth 2007 and SkipNorth 2006. Happy days!