A Few Child-Free Days, A Lot of Shopping and Some Knitting!

Ah, bliss. Although of course I miss the little blighter! Luckily Daddy kept me well abreast of his movements - here he is on his way to nursery (with George) on Weds morning.

And here is relaxing with the Sunday papers

On Tuesday evening I caught the train to Bristol; I worked out that the last time I did this was Christmas 2003. That's quite a while. Anyhoozles, I headed out of the door leaving hubby and DC behind, feeling guilty at abandoning them but knowing that on Thursday they would be heading up to Wigan to spend the weekend with Grandma and Grandad. Luckily, the guilty feeling didn't last that long...

The purpose of my trip to Bristol was to play nursemaid (although re-reading the following paragraph, it would seem that the purpose was actually to go shopping.) On Weds morning Mum & I were up at the crack of dawn (earlier than I have to get up with DC - ouch!); we walked down to the hospital and at 9am Mum was taken to the operating theatre to have her gallbladder removed. Cue my dash back to Mum's to fetch her car and drive to the mall. I looooooove the mall at Cribbs Causeway. So much so, that from Weds-Friday I managed to spend a total of 15 hours there. Sad, but very, very true. And, boy did I shop up a storm. I totally and utterly made the most of being child-free. I bought trousers and a coat in M&S; yarn and a knitting pattern for wristwarmers (for me) in John Lewisdungarees, pjs and a t-shirt for DC in John Lewis; a long cardi in Monsoon; a big cardi in Next; toys for DC from ELC; toiletries in Boots; and I had the same lunch in John Lewis three days running - brie and courgette soup - delicious; not to mention a coffee/biscuit break in Starbucks on day one, a coffee/cake break in M&S on day two and a coffee/shortbread break in John Lewis on day three. Could it be that I'm a little bit in love with John Lewis? I also saw Nigella Lawson in the flesh in Waterstones on Weds afternoon, but couldn't be bothered to buy her book and cue up to have it signed so I meandered round the shop trying to make it look as if I wasn't really interested in the fact that she was there and then snuck out the old iPhone to take a photo.

I will hasten to add here, that the hours I spent at the mall were while Mum was a) in hospital sleeping after her op and b) while she was at home resting. I didn't just abandon her; honest... In fact she made it quite clear that she felt more able to relax knowing that I wasn't sitting at home waiting for her to wake up - so that was fine by me!

Anyway, when I wasn't shopping, I was knitting! Now that the weather has turned, my thoughts have turned to chilly fingers. I popped into Accessorize to look at the gloves and my eye was taken my some wristwarmers (yes, I know they're not necessarily going to keep my fingers warm, I just fancied trying them), but at 14.00 a pair I did wonder if I might be able to make some myself, hence the trip to JL's haberdashery department where I found the fab pattern and yarn for a grand total of 5.80. And since Thursday evening I've barely stopped knitting:

By Friday evening one wristwarmer was done!Saturday afternoon I knitted on the train And today I knitted in Costa.
I'm officially addicted to knitting these wristwarmers!