Not the Tour de France

We were just enjoying a quiet coffee and croissant in the square when lots - and I mean lots - of cyclists began arriving. According to the gendarme who was making a half-hearted attempt to divert the traffic, there were going to be more than five thousand (that's 5,000!!) cyclists passing through Chinon that day.

It was great fun and all very entertaining as more and more of them squashed into the narrow streets.


And then the musicians arrived along with a very tall dancer! He kept trying to spray the cyclists faces - with water I presume. Goodness knows how he kept his balance on these cobbles.




There was an amazing range of ages but they all looked very fit.

That was a lovely hot sunny day - not quite as perfect for kite flying as this one was .
In fact the weather over the last two weeks has been windier than I can ever remember in Summer - and cooler too. And wetter. But not as cold, wet and windy as back home by all accounts.

But more importantly I've knitted the second Cleopatra sock and started - in fact finished the first sock - of that lovely Rivendell pattern from Janel Laidman. It's available singly and also in her book - The Eclectic Sole. I've ordered this but not had a confirmation and I think it's reprinting. I hope it'll be waiting for me when we get home, it sounds very exciting.

The thing is I decided I wanted to knit it toe-up in my usual fashion with the clever pattern superimposed....
I wanted the ribbing to start in a graduated fashion...
That works ok. And I love the colour of the Jitterbug - I think it's called Wasabi Squeeze. And I'm happy with the heel...
Although I think next time I would introduce the ribbing on the back of the leg in a graduated way like at the toe. And do a couple of inches before starting the diamonds. But it was going well. I made it longer to use up exactly half the yarn.
But, and it's a big but, I've not managed to re-work the main pattern motif so that it looks the same knitted in the opposite direction.

See

It's all wrong.


I shall have to wait until I have more time at home to sort out how to do it. If I can. I'm under such pressure to do holiday things atm and it's definitely not the sort of thing I can get my head round when I'm constantly being asked if I'll be much longer.

Lace knitting photos next time...one finished shawl and another I'm test-knitting. It's all very exciting!!

And just a glimpse of the sunflower fields that seemed to be all around us when we first arrived. Aren't they lovely?

sunflowers2, originally uploaded by tigerlily598k.

They're usually coming to an end in mid July but this year they were planted later because of the cold spell earlier in the year and so we have seen them at their best!




I have to give a sad update on our baby dormice who didn't survive. The skylarks - well I don't really know. The next time we looked at the nest, several days later there were no babies there. I know they fledge really quickly, so I hope that's what happened.