9:01 to Bristol

An ungodly early start, but it was worth it.

A couple of months ago, a Foyles' away day to Get Knitted in Bristol was mooted and approved, and today it finally arrived. Masterfully organised by Ronke, there were six of us who rolled out of bed in time for the 9am departure.  Ronke, Pauline, Claire, Angela, Adrienne and me.

The first of the bargain bins.

Ok, so there weren't so many bargains, but there was a huge selection.  Yarn, fabric, notions and haberdashery.  Free tea, coffee and sweeties, and a loo, which of course is all just in the name of making you spend longer there and part with more cash.  Not that we had a problem with that.  This is just a corner of the shop.  Double sided island of sock yarn.

I couldn't resist these, which seem to be limited editions, artist inspired.

I mostly bought tools and accessories, like Addi Lace needles and Clover Pom Pom makers.   And  a couple more skeins of sock yarn.

We'd found a taxi driver at the station who could take six in his cab, so we kept phoning Roger as our personal driver for the day.  We headed for lunch (fabulous seafood) at the same restaurant that Angela and Ronke visited on their last trip to Bristol and I think we'll probably head there next time, if only so that Angela can ogle the photo of Clive Owen again.  After a quick visit to the sweet shop in the arcade to stock up on Flying Saucers, gobstoppers, and coconut ice, it was jumping back in with Roger again to go to John Lewis - because their sale started today and we were missing it in London.  So we thought we'd just pop up there briefly, because luckily we were going back from the other Bristol station, so we knew we'd be on the right side of town... Eh, right.

It was certainly worth the trip.  There was a lot of stuff on sale, mainly Debbie Bliss, including something I've been hanging out to buy for ages, the Pure Silk, all at 50% off.  So I grabbed a pile, and now of course I'm slapping my forehead because I should have bought the black too, d'oh.  It just never occurred to me.  Not that I can justify it, but that has literally, as you well know, never stopped me before.  And wool doesn't go off.  Any Bristol knitters out there?  Get into JL.  It's worth it.  Plus they had more of the sale yarns still on the shelves too, so quite a lot of stock. 

So we all swooped out of JL, laden down with bulky bags after about fifteen minutes of military precision purchasing, with plenty of time to jump in a taxi (Roger had abandoned us, sadly).  At this point I was glad I didn't go mad at the Liberty sale this week - on things I didn't really want, but would consider simply because there were on sale. Only three balls of Kid Silk Night in red made the cut, as I really want to master knitting with this fluffy dental floss. 

The throngs of shoppers were conspicuously missing from the car park in the rain, as were moving vehicles: no taxis, no buses, no hope of making it to the train on time.  Maddeningly, there was a six seater taxi sitting there, empty, and another cab pulled in briefly and informed us that the driver was inside the shopping mall, because he couldn't get a fare earlier?!  I have to admit that the shine faded from the JL sidetrip at that point as the prospect of paying another £48 for a train fare home loomed.  Sense of humour failures were imminent.  Particularly as the savings in the sale were about to be obliterated.

But the god of train inspectors was shining on us.  Our tickets were fine for the way back.  We were so close to getting Pauline's Bright Dyes laceweight yarn wound up, with me holding the skein and Pauline making her centre pull ball, but even a 90 minute train journey couldn't do it.  I think we got about a kilometre done  - it's 1200 metres.  Back at Paddington, it was worth running to catch the Hammersmith & City line train, because they're so sporadic in the evenings, but we did make it and that was a final triumph for the day. 

A very fun day with a bunch of funny, wise, witty, knitty ladies.  Ideally, here is where we'd like to go next. 

Home in the rain to the mogs.  We're all settled on the sofa.

And Shrimp is eyeing the new yarn...

Comments

[Jenny]

Gail, wow, the trip sounds like so much fun. Thanks for telling me all about it. I wish I could've gone, but I was in the fashion history/costume conference all Friday and Saturday (which is another story....). Please let me know when the Colinette trip is. That would be great. I have always wanted to go there. Hey, hope you are well. Take care.

[Sarah Jayne]

What a great looking shop. Bet you had a great time.

[hannah]

your day in bristol sounded fun! happy blogiversary (do I get included in the draw now - hope so!!) And the idea of going to a Colinette open day, will have to mention it to some friends round here, its not far from me, and colinette wool is so scrummy, even to a can-hardly-knit-ter like me!!

[Sarah]

Hi! I just wanted to say I just discovered your blog and I love it! Very cool hearing about your time in New York. I just moved to London from New Zealand and spent two weeks in NY on the way, isn't it great. Unfortunately like you I'm unemployed and not getting any temp work and knowing how expensive London would be I had to be very restrained in NY (it was very hard as the $NZ is very high against the greenback, but not the pound sadly. So while I felt rich in NY, I knew I would feel super poor here). But I'm probably going back at Christmas, hopefully by that time I will have some pounds to spend there.

[PurlyQueen]

I had such a blast. I can't wait for the next outing!

[Clare]

Sounds like a great way to spend the day! and it's cool to see the inside of get knitted too - I wish they'd open up in Newcastle :)

[Elizabeth]

Thanks for the great post about Get Knitted. I'm off to visit my mum in Bristol in a couple of weeks and we had planned to take a trip across the city (it'll probably take us longer than it did for you to get there from London) to check out the shop. Your post couldn't have come at a better time for me - and I'm very relieved to hear there is a loo at the shop. I'm sure I shall be in dire need of it after an hour or two on buses.