England: The Flight

So I've decided that I'm going to discuss my recent trip to the Motherland in stages, with photos as appropriate, to distract you all from the fact that I haven't picked up the needles in anger in several weeks days. However, first I will amuse you with some sheep:

These lovely specimens belong later in the trip, but they're so cute, investigating the National Trust donation box...

The first couple day of the trip consisted of the flight to London. I flew to London via Houston, which is really NOT on the way from Seattle. On my first flight I must (sadly) admit that I watched (and sort of enjoyed) Aquamarine. The second flight is where the sock crisis that I referred to yesterday took place. Imagine it: You're on a plane, somewhere over the north Atlantic, at what your body thinks is about 2:30am. You've wrangled your way into the window seat by convincing the nice young lad that had the seat that his huge backpack wouldn't fit under that seat because there was some sort of plane part in there, but would under the middle seat (which he fell for, because you smiled sweetly, even though the bag ended up in the overhead bin, since it was huge and had a tripod attached. More on him later). You're all cozy, and you've watched two movies already (Failure to Launch and Firewall (have I mentioned how I love Paul Bettany?)) on your individual screen (god love 777s) because you don't sleep on planes. You decide you should knit, and go for the Clapotis because it requires less attention than a lace sock, and it's 2:30am and it's kind of dark. So, you reach in your bag, carefully, because the sock is in there, and out comes your hand with a DPN. That had, until recently, been attached to the sock. Are you picturing this? You mutter obscenities under your breath (hopefully - you have your iPod on so you're not really sure of the volume), and dig out the sock. In a stroke of luck, the stray needle has come out of the sole, not the lace. You thank someone upstairs and pray you can fix the sock (since you're closer than usual you figure this might be effective). You suck it up and start picking up stitches. It's not that bad, until the end, when you realize that some of the stitches have come unknit. But you can't face fixing that, so you just pick up what you can and decide you'll deal with it later. Much later. As in you still haven't looked at the sock and somehow also managed to lose one of your precious DPNs on the plane. Which was a good excuse for not working on the sock the whole trip. You work on the Clapotis a bit until Firewall comes on again, and you watch that, because you love Paul Bettany. Even when he's a bad guy. But especially in Wimbleton, which you watch the day you get home. And Master and Commander. But I digress...And then you start reading your book, Stiff, about the crazy things that happen to/are done to corpses, until you land.

That is the sock story. Really it's not that bad but I had to share it since it's part of why I didn't knit much on the trip. Back to the nice boy who gave me his seat on the plane. He was going to backpack around Europe, and he had no plans, knew not a soul, and spoke nothing but English (which is probably fine, really). His plan, the first night, I kid you not, was to camp in LONDON. Well, first he was going to walk from Gatwick to London, which is a LONG way, and then camp in a park in the city. The kind British woman next to him tried to convince him there were laws against that, but he was undeterred. I meant to get his email, just to find out what happened to him, but I forgot. I hope he makes it. He seemed a bit naive but, well, it takes all kinds. More tomorrow...