Wednesdays by the river and Gormley spotting...

I love Wednesday nights! We can close the shop and go to the pub, which, when you're working from 9.30 and closing at 9pm most days is a blessing! OK, so we're still knitting but we're doing it with beer and with other fabulous knitting folk and it's a real midweek wind-down. Gerard is just happy there's no website for me to update or computer to sit in front of because that's where I usually am, tweaking something or other in cyberspace. But Wednesdays is my chance to actually do some knitting, although the other night had a few false starts, I got there in the end, thanks to Jon who doesn't get bored with counting stitches or unpicking. I, on the other hand, have a short attention span. Jon and Esther also brought along their finished pattern for our sock club and if you've signed up you're in for a treat too. Still time though to plug it though and you can still join for June/July/August here!



Anyways, we found ourselves in the shadow of Tate Modern at Wednesday IKL knitting meet-up at The Founder's Arms, with familiar and fresh faces. Hello to everyone who came, the pub was packed but we liked it, although the scrum at the bar was shocking. An especially big thanks to Tom who was only in town for this week from Chicago - he treated us, thanks Tom! Our old favourite Tom was also back from Sri Lanka (with tea, peppercorns and vanilla essence) to make us all really jealous, and we had a visit from an original IKL knitter (Vanessa, we thought we'd upset you!) who we haven't seen for ages. That's what's so good about the knit nights, you can be sitting in the pub and have no idea who's gonna show up - sometimes it looks like we might be there on our own all night but we know the knitters of London can't hide away for too long.

Have you all seen the Gormleys standing on the rooftops of London? We first saw his statues on the beach at Crosby last year when we were up in Liverpool - it was eerie, these metal figures standing in regimented lines gazing out to sea at the passing ships. Although they were all lined up they seemed much more lost and lonely than their urban brothers. If you don't know what I'm on about pop down to the Hayward Gallery for Anthony Gormley's first major exhibition, and then hang around the South Bank and see if you can spot the Gormleys on the rooftops of buildings all along the river, north and south. This one is directly opposite the box office on the fifth floor of the National Theatre (my day job) - when you catch glimpse from the corner of your eye it makes you a bit uneasy, even when he's there staring at you all day. Aleasha has already christened him 'Johnny the jumper'.

Watched Calendar Girls tonight at the IKL film night. Never seen it before, very funny. God bless 'em! Funny how it did the WI a world of good, and yet, according to the film they weren't really all that into the idea in the first place! Next week we're showing Sunset Boulevard cos we all love a big drama queen.

Craig
IKL