Who's driving your plane?

Guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Tomorrow we fly Manchester to Newquay, all of an hour's flight - it takes longer to drive to Manchester airport! Seemed much the best way to visit the DSM's mother.

She has been extraordinarily patient, having been dying to see her little boy since he first had his heart attack. But this really is the first opportunity we have had one way and another, and even so, it is a very literal interpretation of a flying visit as we will be home again by Sunday teatime. Still long enough to reassure her, I hope. It will be lovely to see her, she is a very special person, and as she can't travel herself any more and our trips are usually few and far between, something good has again come from the "event"! I actually think more flying visits are going to be in our future - may enlarge our carbon footprint, but gets the two of them (three of us) together more often, and as she is 91 that can't be a bad thing.

We have some news for her. The DSM had his long-awaited hospital appointment yesterday, and he checks out ok, but does still have the fibrillation. and they are going to try to reset it. So, he is now on Warfarin (it wasn't me, guv, honest!) and they have upped the betablocker dose (boo, hiss, the Reynaud's will probably now get worse) for various technical reasons that we do just about follow, and then in a week or four's time, they will have him in for the day and do the deed. Yikes.

Next week, he will probably start the process of making arrangements to return to work. That's going to be interesting......

I have a new sock project to while away the time whilst travelling or chatting. I have finished the custom dye job ones (I will post a photograph when we get back, together with one or two braid ones, but simply can't face doing it this evening*). The new pair are A Departure (inadvertent - groan!) They almost qualify, indeed are described as, lace.

You may hear the screams as the plane passes overhead.......

But I am just a little bored with plain vanilla (I think there is another groan to be inserted there). I did a K3 P1 rib on the just-completed ones, and now want to venture a tiny bit further into complexity. Well, in my terms of reference, anyway. Watch this space, if you dare. (The pattern is the purl lace from Socksx3, and only has one actual pattern row, so there is hope.)

I completed a flat braid sample today - I found it more tricky, it was harder to keep an even tension, mostly because there is a cross-over swap for the last move of the sequence, and I couldn't do that evenly. Still, practice might help.........

*I was also handicapped. Without going into revolting detail, I have a degree of gum disease, in the main kept reasonably well in check by good work on my part (I am sometimes dumbfounded by what as practised by others is, I suppose, adequate oral hygiene!) So, every now and again, I get a flare-up of what in the good old days was probably what was known as a "gumboil". Sounds so folksy and charming, no? And I also suppose that it is not so very surprising that an episode has erupted (hah) now. Something was going to. So, a trip to the dentist, and a prescription for antibiotics, blergh. Making me feel somewhat seedy.

So, I am retiring early for the night, with a newly charged iPod and my new sock. I'll no doubt get a cat or two. I really rather like the sound of that, cosy, on a dank, chilly night.

OK, expect a day or two of silence. And then maybe some photos.