Harrogate

Ok here goes... this will be a very long post & I needed enough time to put it all together hence the delay.

On Thursday morning I started my journey with two trains. I left the car at home so that DH could take DD training & so that I didn't leave him stranded. This of course left plenty of time for sock knitting so the Tiger Jaywalker was frogged & restarted.

Harrogate was COLD but Andrea met me at the station & we then spent 20 minutes searching for our hotel. When we finally found it we realised that we'd passed it twice already. Our room was lovely with a huge bathroom & two twin beds. The decor was beautiful & very welcoming.

We then went out briefly before I went to the Turkish Baths for my massage. All I can say is heaven, especially when the masseur got his knuckles into my shoulders. I was ready to sleep after that but instead Andrea & I went into the Turkish Baths proper. It was wonderful: sauna then a quick shower before the plunge pool - oh my god, the quickist two lengths of breast stroke I've ever done in my life, then on to the hot rooms. We just relaxed, chatted & got very warm. Then the process was repeated, many times. Hot, shower, cold plunge!! Finally when we left I was so relaxed I could have curled up in a ball & slept for a week. Instead we found a great Indian restaurant but neither of us could finish the main course as the starters were huge - so less food next time.

The show itself was fanastic. 4 halls full of vendors. We had booked a crochet workship run by the Knitting & Crochet Guild in the morning which was fun & I learnt how to make a crochet Curly Whirley scarf. I've got two odd balls of Sirdar Wow in lilac that I didn't have any plans for so may play soon.

Then we found Daisy. It was great to finally meet her. She seemed happy to leave her Mum & Aunt to their own shopping & the 3 of us went to find the Relax & Knit stand & my Secret Pal, which has already been blogged about here.

After introductions etc we all split up to go shopping & headed off like kids on a treasure hunt. Yvonne very kindly lent me her catalogue in which she marked off all the good stands & must visits. I had a fixed budget in mind & really didn't want to go over it especially as DH was laying the law down about more yarn purchases.

I had a few things in mind that I needed & first off were this little beauties from Taj Crafts


Accessories

Then I found RKM Wools and bought 3 skeins of Maya


Maya

Inspired by one of the gifts Yvonne gave me I bought 400g of this:


undyed yarn

Then these little beauties.


Lorna's Laces sock yarn

I had planned to get some Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn but the colours didn't scream out to me. So instead I bought some Lorna's Laces sock yarn from Get Knitted

I've already mentioned that I had a budget & that I had intended not to go over it..... Well I'm afraid this little beauty from Web of Wool took me over my budget but not by much



Socka Color

After all that I headed back to the Relax & Knit stand to wait for Andrea. It is very well named as it's nice to sit & chill after the noise & bustle of shopping.

To end the day a gang of us went for a sandwhich before I raced for the train only to find it was delayed I got home in time having just caught my connecting train by the skin of my teeth - and yes Sue you're right - the train journeys were a perfect opportunity to increase the Tiger Jaywalkers