It was my birthday yesterday which means it’s less than a year to go before my next one so you still have time to shop!

My main pressie from the Professor was some freshwater pearl jewellery. Mmm, classy.

And then some little bits and bobs, the books are from his brother.

And yes, I did ask for a new calculator. I’m just that old now.

His brother did also get me the FSM gospel but I forgot to put that in the last photo.

And the sweeties and toys are from Idoru.

Spanner, NM and Badger got me some pretty yarn last weekend.

Spanner got me Shrinkydinks too and I think I might make myself some dead classy earrings once I’ve brought my colouring pencils back home from work.

And I’ve also got Pure Bug Too from the Professor’s Dear Old Mumsie which is a digital radio alarm clock and very geeky but I like it.

I have more coming my way apparently. OR ELSE! So I send birthday thanks to everyone that gave me pressies and wished me a happy buffday.

My chum Thorpney came to visit from the New Forest and we all trundled up to London on the train.

Thorpney’s never been to London before so he was pretty excited. Especially when he saw all the dragons.

He was less impressed with the tourists and there were a few unpleasant incidents.  Apologies to anyone that got kicked out of Holborn station on Saturday when the fire brigade turned up, but he’s an excitable little dragon.

There was plenty of feasting and boozing and hardly any temper tantrums at all.  Overall a quite successful day.

But wait!  There’s more!

Birch is done.  I still don’t like it, and I confess to being lazy blocking it.   I could probably have got a few more inches of stretch out of it, but I would have had to clear some mess away to make room and that just wasn’t going to happen.

It’s an easy pattern though, and I greatly approve of the rows getting shorter.  By the time you’re getting sick of knitting it they take hardly any time at all.

I’ve also knitted up the very last of last year’s Ally Pally stash* into some socks for Badger.  They were going to be socks for me, but they didn’t fit anymore after I did the heel.

If it turns out they don’t fit her either, there may be a giveaway in November.  The pattern is Shock Wave and can be found here.  Its good for variegated yarn and if I was less lazy I would have frogged and added another repeat, but I’m not less lazy and I know my limits.

Work has begun on my peril sensitive snood and I’m on my second attempt.  Three more and I should be well on my way.

Scuse the fur, but I’m growing in my winter coat.

I have yarn! Much yarn! Beware of photos.

I was apparently shopping to a theme this year. I tend to forget what I’ve bought as I wander around and then I get a nice suprise when I empty my bags back out at home. This year my surprise was that I bought the exact same yarn over and over again. I’m sure you can never really have too much red laceweight though.

My first purchase was at Knitwitches, she was jolly pleased to see young knitters. I was just happy to be called young. You have to reward that sort of thing.

I gots me some fibre from Knit Shop and they didn’t seem to at all mind having to dismantle their display to fetch it down for me.

I have socky yarn from Socktopus. I was a very good girl this year and obeyed Northern Monkey’s strict instructions not to buy variegated sock yarn because it never looks as pretty knitted up.

The smooshy is very smooshy.

The Evolution is just plain weird. It’s merino that’s been stretched to have the same micron count as cashmere but it has the sheen of silk. I wouldn’t say it’s quite cashmere soft, but it’s certainly softer than merino has any right to be. It’s probably about alpaca soft.

I have Fyberspate lace weight and this time I did manage to veer into a different colour family.

But not for long. More red laceweight with a bit of purple in there so the sock yarn didn’t feel left out.

Then I found the Knit n Caboodle lady. She’s a very nice lady, and she’s on Ravelry and feeling short of friends so if you want to make a nice lady feel popular she’s on there as Caboodle. Anyway, she had this lovely baby alpaca lace weight, and as I was a little short of red lace weight I felt it would be foolish not to buy any.

At Hipknits I picked up some more laceweight. But, my memory being what it is, I didn’t realise at the time that it’s the exact same colour as the Fyberspates. D’oh!

Then I bought more purple sock yarn at The Natural Dye Studio thinking it would make a nice change from all that red, forgetting of course that I already had the purple Socktopus stuff.

My last shopping stop was Touch Yarns. Can you guess what I bought? Did someone at the back say red lace weight?

Then our intrepid Donkey! Monkey! troupe ventured forth into Olde London Towne for a well earned pancake lunch as recommended by the wise old pancake fox Idoru. And then on to Stash, because we didn’t have enough yarn. I was bought my birthday tributes but I’ll save those for next Saturday’s Birthday Booty Bonanza. Don’t let the postal strikes put you off, there’s still plenty of time to send me presents.

And then we went to I Knit London, which is one of the bestest shops of ever and Craig was there and he didn’t look even a little bit scared, not even when Badger took her shoes off.

We bought ourselves each a skein of super soft cashmere for making peril sensitive snoods with.

Then it was time to go home and fill Spanner with coffee ready for driving back up through passport control and onwards to The North.

Thanks to everyone who said nice things about my blankie. It’s getting lots of use now that the weather is nippy.

I have some secret knitting that I did finish and post off but I think it’s been stolen as it hasn’t arrived at the other end. :o( I’m going to wait and see if it emerges from the other end of this accursed strike, but I’m not very hopeful. In which case there will be a memorial thread at the end of the month.

Now, a while ago, the Professor’s Dear Old Mumsie went off on holibags to Amerikee and brought me back holibag yarn. Rowan yarn. I know. Anyway, it’s orange kidsilk haze and I’m not a fan, but she really loves the orange and she really loves the fuzzy, so would I be a bad monkey if I gave it back to her for Crimbo after turning it into Birch? I don’t like Birch either, but she will.

I has also been knitting sexy monkey gloves.

These ones aren’t for the Badger! I’m going to wear them when I go out fighting so the blood doesn’t show up.

And I did some pirating too because I’m a good little monkey. And I only went a very little bit wrong!

And I bought a donkey! Well, a time share in a donkey, and strictly speaking it wasn’t all my money, but it’s a start. Soon my donkey army will destroy the world! give free rides to happy children on the beach.

Introducing the official Donkey! Monkey! donkey mascot Bergerac!

Sing with me! Doo doo doooooooooooo do do do doooooooooooooooo do do dooooooo do do do doooooo, dee dee diddly dee dededededeedeeeeeee…

EDIT: Of course a short while after posting the errant pressie turned up.

So here he is in all his nekkid glory!