Only in Hebden Bridge

Fond father to obviously the birthday girl, standing on the pavement in town "Now that you are eighteen my darling, you will need to pay more attention to spatial awareness!" In other words, "Keep the hell out of people's way." I love it!

Also, the pleasure of watching a gorgeous retriever waiting patiently under a bench outside our fine-weather-favourite cafe whilst mum goes in to order her latte. HB does dogs well, by and large. Lattes, too, although I am more of a cappucino woman myself. There are many, many cafes, but only a couple with tables outside. We were frequenting OFWFC because the sun was shining beautifully this morning when we went in to town to post eBay packages, pick up a Grauniad and rescue my Readers' Group book from where I had remembered that I had left it. So we sat in the sun with aforementioned cappucinos plus red pesto and black olive panini (I did say Hebden Bridge, remember...) and practised for France.

I was teaching yesterday, it was a blast, although once more knackering. I had sixteen participants in total, including two complete beginners and two intermediates, plus everyone who wanted to be making felt. But my "regular" crowd always but always rise to the occasion when they know I am pushed, and more or less looked after themselves. The two first timers could have been a pain, but I managed to keep them occupied and sweet. They had misunderstood the brochure, and not been put straight by the staff, not too much of a surprise under the new regime, and thought they were coming for more of a taster day of everything I list as the sort of programme we run throughout the year. But fortunately, they are embroiders, and loved the idea of spinning funky yarns with spindles, so spent the entire day learning how to do that, very successfully, too. What is more, they elected to keep the bookings in for the further two classes with me that they are signed up for, so I felt decidely pleased with myself.

I also enjoyed to the hilt spending time doing real and actual spinning tuition with my intermediates. One, a newcomer, but I know her mother from a previous existence, has been well taught in the very limited basics. I gave her a whistle stop tour of drafting other than with short draw, fibre prep with combs, how I like a wheel set up, few other bits and pieces. She absorbed it like rain on the desert, and will be another returner. The other one is a person I like very much indeed, and she is very bright and self reliant, so usually gets a little bit short-changed, to my shame. But I gave her lots of time yesterday, and had to field a barrage of forensic questioning on the technical aspects of spinning (hard for me, as I am a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants, intuitive type of spinner by inclination) It was all immensely satisfying. I also garnered a jar of her honey (she is a beekeeper and indeed expert, travels abroad on bee-projects; and from another class member a large bag of cashmere as a thank you for picking up her two (yes, TWO!!) Timbertops wheels last weekend.

I came home, threw quorn fillets (what is this nonsense about a lawsuit? Obviously some food giant company behind it, she said cynically)into Thai green curry paste and coconut milk, which is way tastier than it sounds, ate that with relish (ha ha) downed two largeish measures of Jamesons' with lots of ice, watched "Have I Got News For You" and The Simpsons (so now all my grubby secrets are out) and fell in to bed.

And, amazingly, no political rant. As Andrew Marr apparently has said, democracy actually achieved what so many wanted it to do. Good grief, does this mean I have to stop being cynical about the democratic process?

H'mm.

gw