A hectic life

I really need to slow down as life is way too hectic at the moment and I am need of a chill out.
We had a great time with Kath & Emily but didn't get to do all we wanted to as 'Little Miss' is far too full of energy to sit down for a second and then when she went to bed we were too exhausted to do much else . We went to the Rabbit Farm where I could have easily come home with a few fluffy bunnies ( fibre yummy fibre ) a cute puppy or maybe a goat ?



We went to the beach which Miss Emily loved and Kath ran around trying to keep up with her whilst Nain and Tony tried to have 5 mins kip !! No way castles to build , holes to dig, water to carry !!


We did some bargain charity shopping & got some great craft books so Kath went home laden with goodies :)

On the knitting front,I have finished the top in Giotto and I am happy with it although I did do a few alterations ; photo will follow soon when DH masters the new camera :)
I have also finished the back of my cardigan and I have also knitted up my bit of hand spun, hand dyed camel for the Lleyn entry to the all Wales guild exhibition( all very secret LOL )
Re spinning : I have spun the re-cycled plastic for the Meirionedd Guild entry which I can't say I enjoyed, lots of white Llanwenog and this yummy boucle yarn which is destined to become a bolero for 'Little Miss' .It is very shiny and soft and the kid mohair has given it a lovely halo and I think when she has outgrown the bolero this yarn has to be re-cycled ;)


It's BFL & silk and plyed with kid mohair.

We had two days of sun this weekend ( in fact it still shining today sshhhhhh) so I have been fleece washing and boy is it hard work I have done four & I still have two more to do.The Teeswater was the hardest as it's a big heavy fleece ; it is such a beauty soft,lustrous with a staple of over 12 inches and I want to single ply some of it to use as lace weight .Plus I am picking up five more fleece from my guild meeting on Thursday but only one will be for me thank goodness.

So for the rest of this week I am going to do as little as possible as Kath, Barry and Emily are over again on the weekend for a few days and I haven't even cleared up after the last visit properly !!They are having days out together so x fingers that the weather will be good for them.

Last bit of news, I have just had my Ravelry invite, yipeee :) so now I can see what all the excitement is about .I may be gone for some time !!

Dyeing Heaven

I had such a wonderful day with the Lleyn SWD Guild on Thursday but before I tell you all about that I want to show you some goodies I received from the lovely Andrea

It was all beautifully packaged and one even had 'sheepy' paper :)

I am using my new camera here and haven't got used to it yet so photos are not great. There is a note book, which is aptly named ,I don't do mornings ;) a beautiful stitch marker that Andrea made herself , a tube of lush hand cream , a necklace and last but not least and you would have to enlarge the pic to see it better, is a hank of lace weight in yummy purples and burgundy's which I have just the pattern for. A BIG thank you Andrea for a most thoughtful gift .

Now my dyeing day .
Wednesday turned out to be a really hot sunny day and for me to be out of the house by 9 am is saying something. I didn't sleep well the night before as I was a bit apprehensive about the driving ; I used to love driving at one time but since my illness I have lost confidence, so it's another thing I am trying to re-claim back.
Well I did get a bit lost but I have to say I enjoyed the drive along the small lanes and the scenery was lovely . The cottage where it was held was just above the sea , a stunning setting and I wish I had taken my camera along with me . I was a bit nervous about meeting a lot of new faces but I need not have worried as they were all lovely and I felt right at home immediately, although it will take a bit to remember all their names . We had such fun and laughter and a fabulous buffet lunch which we all added to .
I have made notes of each dye bath and it was like being a kid in school playing about with this pot or that and as the day progressed the hedges became strewn with all different shades . I was in totally wonderment as to how many shades you could get out of basically four dyes and using different mordants and modifiers.

These are my efforts of the day and I can't wait to knit them up but I have to be patient as we are all bringing our skeins at the next meeting for a group photo. Also, of course I have yet to do my dyeing day with the other group and so I should have even more choice of colours to use.




I think I am hooked on natural dyeing and will certainly experiment more with it in the near future.
There is a wealth of talent in this group also: so now that I have joined,I have two SWD guild meetings to look forward to each month. I am going to the all Wales gathering with them as they are providing a coach which passes my door nearly,so it will save me the hassle of trying to find the place were it's held and have fun nattering with them on the journey. All guilds are given a fibre to create something with for the show and then the finished item is judged and in the Meirionedd Guild we have re-cycled plastic bottles which spins okay but as I have missed the last meeting I am unsure what we are doing with it as yet. In the Lleyn Guild they are using camel so it will be fun to work with both projects. I have already spun my piece of camel , a fibre I had never used before and it is so soft and now I need to dye it for the piece of work I have been assigned to do .

The rest of the news I have is that Canon got back to me re the camera and even though the camera is nearly four years old its a known fault with this edition and they will repair it free of charge , Brilliant:)
I am also keeping my promise of trying to do more walking . On our doorstep we have so many lovely walks and there is one in particular I have wanted to re-do for a few years now, but as its an uphill climb to get back I have been putting it off as I know it would be hard for me. BUT, we did it the other day and I was so chuffed with myself even if I was aching all over after .
Here is Rhaeadr Cynfal (Cynfal Falls)



It was in full force but as there are so many leaves on the trees now you couldn't see it all so I will have to go back in the Autumn. I took a lot of photos and in one of the meadows we walked through there were so many wild flowers and then in the trees the variety of mosses ,ferns, lichens and mushrooms was far greater than I have seen at this time of the year , due no doubt to the heavy rain we have had this year.All of this area is a nature reserve and is one of the oldest and unspoilt woodlands in Wales and was featured on TV programme recently.
Tony took a picture of me hugging a tree !!


Look what I found a few minutes later


Which goes to show that if you hug a tree it will give you a little of its heart :)

On the knitting front I have nearly finished the back of the cardigan and am also half way through knitting Ophelia from the Colinette Femme Fatale book,using the frogged Giotto so X fingers that this will look okay knitted up. I am hoping it will as I need an outfit for a family wedding and have fabric to make a skirt to match and I have the 'Blimey Limey' shawl to go with it too.

I tell, you its all go here :) and Kath and Emily are over tomorrow hence why I am updating my blog today . Kath has had an exciting week too but I will let her tell you all about that( when she gets time !!) and Tony has been busy in the shed with wood and drill and bits making something for us girls to play with, hopefully over the next few days, all being well.
So will tell you all about that in my next post.

Of mice & men

Well as the saying goes the best laid plans of .......
This week has been a bit of a mix and our dyeing day was cancelled by a very sudden and unexpected bereavement for Gwyneth, the lovely lady who's garden we were going to. So that puts life into perspective doesn't it before I start ?
It will be held again in the future but no date set as yet so I didn't have to rush with my spinning and will have more than enough for this next weeks dyeing . All being well I will go but it's not held at their usual meeting place but in the wilds of the Lleyn peninsular; I'm still not sure exactly where the cottage is ,and its a warren of little roads in that area and a good hour and a half's drive from me but I need to do something creative and I so want to learn as much as possible about natural dyeing. So I am keeping fingers crossed that I find the place :)

So spinning has been fine but I wanted to knit but who wants a strappy top when all we have had is rain, rain rain with just one odd day of sun, my heart is not in it .I am not sure I even like it & I think it was designed for a stick insect !! I only have a few inches on the back straps to do and I will finish it but I think it will leap straight back in the frog pond. Any one got any good patterns using 3 balls of Colinette Giotto? which would look good on Fiona from Shrek ? ;)
So in consolation I turned to Eva's cardigan and sat down with a log fire on a wet Friday to do some switch off medative knitting. BAH!! I was up until late, trying to figure what I am doing wrong ; it starts with casting on 408 st for the back as there is a ruffle before its a simple rib pattern and then shaping for a fitted waist after the decreases but I can't get the amount of stitches to add up right for the pattern !! Why is it that the simplest things are some times the hardest ? I have undone it at least four times thinking it's me and was so sick of counting ,I have even had DH count them. I have had poor Kath on her first night home from her holidays yesterday do the math with me and we both agree there is an error. So I now need to either get in touch with Eva or just do my own thing with the pattern; its just that it was meant to be simple

Well we did have a little good news , the camera shop phoned up and said that they had been able to recover some of our lost holiday photos so we scooted down there and saw the thump prints on their computer and thought great & paid up but when we viewed them at home, they are all jumbled up and their photo numbers don't correspond with the photo on screen and photos are cropped , pixilated etc but there are some stunning ones too which has to be good news.
Bad news is the camera is at fault not the card so I have mailed Canon to see what they can do ; we can still take photos with it but we may lose them again.The camera is about 4 yrs old and we spent nearly £500 on it then, technology has moved on since ; although this camera still has features not on the modern one that we bought the other week at a fraction of the price.Meanwhile Tony (the self confessed Luddite )is muttering that his old Ricoh camera still works fine & takes great photos, which it does .

I thought I would share a few more shots of our Scottish trip , mainly on Skye this time
This is above Fort William and were Scotland begins for me

Here are the girls in their tartan harness's outside Eilean Donan castle, and why is it that the tide is out yet again when we stop there?

The bridge over to the Isle of Skye

It so hard to try and pick a few photos to show ,as none truly capture the panoramic beauty but here are some of the shots of my spinning evenings at various spots on Skye. What makes you think I love mountains :)



The last is Kilt Rock waterfall again on Skye which is nearly a 300ft drop , amazing and I felt dizzy looking down at the sheer drop.


I have so many,many other photos;of a croft museum with a weaving room and old spinning wheels ,an old working weaving loom, colour filled shots of yummy yarns from Shlasdair, the Old Man of Storr pinnacles ,coastal shots,stunning sunsets , castles. I could go on but I do think I might bore you a bit put I am going to add them to my Flicker site at some point if any one wants to view them .

But I have to add this one in as a wee joke :)
Tony and I at home on our croft



Now for the draw ,each post was numerically listed ,and the winning number drawn by Tony from his own hat;which he later ate as he didn't win anything but I have kept a special chocie for him as well , duh what are men like !!


The winner is number 14 which is Mrs J and if you would leave me your e-mail addy below I will contact you to get your address & send goodies your way. You do like chocie too I hope & of course wooly stuff:)

PS : Apologies to ALL stick insects ; I have been one of them at one time too. One of these days I will dig out photos of me over the last few years and you will see how I have been all extreme sizes at one point, SCARY LOL
Oh and I have just been on the phone to Shilasdair and there is an error in the pattern

Spinning to dye

First of all many thanks for all your lovely replies to my last post it was a great welcome home read and also for all that posted whilst I was away, I am hoping I have replied to all, if not forgive me as I am trying to catch up with all that I have missed and boy some of you have been busy :)
I really don't know how I would keep myself motivated if it wasn't for my online friends , more about that later :)
I don't think I am as yet recovered from our trip away and I still have some ironing to do and catching up with friends and family at home. I haven't been too great either as, as usual I overdo when I get home plus I didn't get great news when I went for another bone density scan on Wednesday . This blog was never meant to dwell on my ailments but to divert me so I won't go into details but suffice to say I was upset for a few days,then got angry and I am now throwing what energy I have into getting the drum carder out and spending my days sitting down listening to relaxing music and carding loads of fluffy white clouds of Llanwenog fleece, which is far more therapeutic that tidying the house etc . The reason for all this pile of clouds? On Thursday we are having a natural dyeing day with the Meirionedd Guild and we are doing blue and yellow this year.
Remember I said ,I met at Woolfest, Jean who is Frankie's MIL, well she is in the Lleyn Guild and when I was looking to join a guild I was in between minds as to which guild to join as both are equi-distance from me but decided against the Lleyn as they met in the evening and I don't enjoy driving at night especially in winter ; well they have changed to day meetings:) So I am going to join them as well, as you can join as many as you like , and guess what they are doing the following Thursday ? yep natural dyeing, done by Jean herself. So as you see I need rather a lot of undyed yarn which I need to mordant before I go. So I am spinning as much as I can, a little a day ; its playing havoc with my joints but I'm determined to do it. Funny enough I spun most days when we were on holiday with no real pain so I don't know if it the constant rain we have had since we have been home or the posture I was spinning in the van. Kath says I should go in the van to spin from now on LOL. I have a spinning chair but maybe its not giving me enough support !!


So here is the yarn I spun whilst on holiday and I love it. I am still going to knit the 'Morning Glory Shawl ' with it but it would be perfect for a garment to wear next to the skin as its so soft. I have over 1,000 yds of it so more than enough and I did buy the yarn from Eva to make the cardigan to go with it, so it has its destiny planned.


Here are the three pairs of socks I knitted whilst we were away .
The first pair is for Tony and I had started the first cuff before we went away .I got the yarn off E-bay and it's an angora mix.I have made myself a pair in the same yarn but different colour and yes they are soft but mine need darning already :( The pattern is off Sock Madness .


Next is the 'Victorian Lace ' socks from SSK which as I had done the shawl should have been easy but trying to navigate and take in the scenery they took me longer than I anticipated and I didn't even try the printed toe instruction given in the pattern as I was too busy to read it !!


I used Natural Dye Studios alpaca and silk for these and was disappointed when there were parts which the dye hadn't taken and as I hadn't worn them then,I thought I would show them to NSD as they were at Woolfest. They were most apologetic and gave me two hanks of yarn as a replacement which I thought was most decent of them. Again lovely to wear but even after one wear and wash they are felting a tad !!

The last pair , again from SSK are the Horcrux socks and as they were short in the leg I used a skein which I had already taken some out to do the stripped socks in Sock Madness so was gambling that there would be enough . I could have done them longer which I would prefer and indeed have still loads of the yarn left; its Opal and the shade was Summer Nights as I remember. I will do these socks again as they are a mindless quick knit but I do not like the heel at all so will change that next time.



On the needles now I have nearly finished the 'Waterlily Top' from Spring 2006 Interweave knits and I just know its going to be too big :( I thought I would do the third size as I am a 36 bust but is huge and I am in two minds whether to frog it and make it smaller or carry on. I also know that Giotto drops like mad after a while; don't you just hate knitting when your gut feelings tell you it isn't right ? The weather is hardly inspiring to knit a sleeveless top either but I don't want an UFO. I frogged 'Bluebell' from Fitted Knits as that was too big as well . I am losing weight gradually now that I am off the steroids so its a dilemma as to what size to knit at the moment !!

Well on Tuesday its my 1st year Blogiversary and I had been thinking of doing something different instead of a straight give away but I'm afraid time and lack of energy means I haven't so if you would like to post a comment, I will make a draw on Saturday and post the winners name next Sunday , no idea what the prize will be as yet , guess it will be something woolly :) or Welsh maybe ? ( and no not a leg of Welsh lamb LOL )
As I said in the beginning of this post I started this blog with the help of Katherine my lovely daughter with the sole idea of it being a way of keeping a record of the things I was knitting .I had over the last few years due to my ill health given up all of my crafts and had no motivation to do any and it was only when Kath was expecting Emily that I grudgingly thought I had better knit something and did a little before starting my blog but without much enthusiasm. Little did I know what I would get up to in this last year but much, much more importantly for me is that I have made on line friends and even met up with a few which is brilliant and learnt so much about knitting, spinning etc and its all POSITIVE and has brought me from a very dark place. So again a very BIG thank you to all who read and all who post on my blog , I truly appreciate it .

Tales of travels and Woolfest

WARNING this is a long post !!

Well we are back and it seems like years since we were living under a 'roof' !! The one thing I do miss about travelling is a bath and I did so enjoy a long soak in the tub last night when we got home but as for unloading the van and boy did we have some stuff, apart from all the goodies we bought .Also all the washing & the ironing to do now, I could sure do without.
I think I can say, we have had one of the best holidays ever.We couldn't believe that the weather was so bad in the rest of the country as we had such great weather with only an odd shower here or there for a day or two. We tend not to listen to the radio or TV much when we are away and indeed didn't have reception in many places we were at, so we were shocked to hear on the news about all the flooding and the poor folks who have lost so much and some have even lost their lives, my heart goes out to them. What is happening to our world climate ?

The one minor disaster we had was that our camera developed a fault and we seem to have lost most of our photos of our trip which is a real shame as there were some great shots;I will take it to our local camera shop and see if they can recover them.

We spent more time this trip on Skye which we both love and found more places which we hadn't been to before and although we did do some 'wild camping ' we found some great sites at Sligachen at the foot of the Cullins with stunning scenery around us and then another one on the other side at Glen Brittle right on the seashore where the volcanic sand was black. These sites were mainly for the seasoned walkers and climbers and we met up with some very interesting people. It's one of the joys of travel for me, to chat to folks from all corners of the world and there were a lot of Dutch and German tourists about on Skye . I know this may sound as if I am being nosy ;) but I do love 'people watching ' and looking around these two sites it was like a mixture of 'base camp ' for the climbers and 'Cost del Skye' for others sitting with their BBQ and picnic tables,as the weather was so warm and sunny .I must admit I too looked out of place sitting outside in the evenings with my spinning wheel, whilst the serious walkers were coming down from the mountains with all their climbing gear on; I did get some funny looks . We did do some walking on the Cullins but not as much as I would have liked to, and at snail pace for me but I am determined that however painful it is I am going to try to do more walking as I miss it so ,and hopefully it will get easier with time.

We also found some yarns shops, one which I think ,so far, has to be my greatest find in so many ways . The first one was in Broadford and was called The Handspinners Having Fun
I had heard of this place before but it had always been closed but this time it was open and again I had a great photo of all their recently dyed wool hanging out on the fences to dry :(
It had some fantastic wool there with all the luxury yarns that you could desire and others as well. We had a chat with the owners Teo & Toni ;they themselves don't spin but they get their yarns spun by folks in Yorkshire , Wales and China !! I asked if any local spinners and knitters worked for them and the answer was, no !! Their yarns came from Argentina ,Spain,India, China etc and they then dyed it and although it was all beautiful I was rather disappointed as I had, maybe a misplaced illusion that it would have supplied a work source for local people and also that I could maybe get some local yarns/fibres and see handspinners having fun !!. Still as I said their yarns were gorgeous although very little handspun,and it's worth a visit if you go there.
But by far the best for me by a long way was Shilasdair The Skye Yarn Company which was run by Eva . We found this by sheer accident on a part of Skye called Waternish which we had missed before but I will most definitely go back and there were a few great arts and crafts galleries and shops around that area also. The setting of her home and shop were so breathtaking, right on the sea shore overlooking a bay dotted with islands; no wonder Eva creates such unique yarns. They are all from natural dyes and she showed us her dye room which was great . She had these large stainless steel pots especially made for her along one side of the wall,each marked with which dyes she used in them and gas burners were under each one to heat them up. She spends all winter dyeing her yarns which are various blends . She used to use all her own fleece from her own flock but now uses other blends with it such as shetland, gotland,cashmere and angora.This she sends off to be processed , again in Scotland.She has local spinners to spin for her as well as knit.She designs some great knitwear as do some other locals and these she sells as part of a kit or you can get them already knitted up but of course they are way more expensive. The only downside was that she didn't sell the patterns seperately as I would have liked to buy a few of them. We spent a lovely morning there with her chatting over a cup of coffee about dyeing etc and she knew folks like Colinette etc. Such a fascinating well travelled lady and such fun too. Of course I had to get some yarn but it was trying to make my mind which one as there were so many lovely ones to chose from but I chose a fairly plain cardigan in the end as I thought it would be a quick knit after all the lace knitting I have been doing lately and I even matched it up with the yarn I was spinning to make 'Morning Glory ' with so that should be nice cosy combo for the end of summer. It is done in one size and I tried the one on display and liked it.Its a lovely purpley blue colour and dyed with logwood.

Its 20% cashmere, 40% angora and 40% lambswool and for that I paid £50 which I think is very reasonable and included the yarn ,pattern buttons and label. There were other cheaper yarns but I just loved the feel of this one.
We also found a shop called Skyeskyns and it's the only tannery left on Skye and they had so many lovely sheepskins for sale and a brilliant free tour . Of course we had to have a Hebridean one which is now called 'Harry' and is draped over the rocking chair at home and very cosy he is too to snuggle into.
Then it was a quick trip to Tony's fav distillery Taliskar for a wee dram and a special bottle for himself.
I could so easily live on Skye as it has everything I could possibly need :)

After Skye we went back to Fort William to meet up with my brother who lives up the road from us and he and his friends had just completed the Three Peaks Challenge For those of you who don't know about this ,its a challenge to climb the three highest peaks in the UK, Snowdon,Scarfell Pike and Ben Nevis and you have to complete them in 24 hrs. They did it it 22hrs 55 mins and they were raising funds for our local air ambulance , a much needed service here. It was a great meeting and strange as although he lives 5 mins from our house I hadn't seen him for a few weeks even though we do talk on the phone and I see him in Scotland !!
So it was congratulations and a few beers all round for them and they went on to their bunkhouse for as few hours sleep before hitting the pubs that night and we went on our way to Mull.

We had decided to cross over not from Oban which is the usual route but from Lochaline which is only a 15min crossing and it meant we could visit Strontian, an old haunt of Tony's caving days and we stayed at the same camp site so a trip down memory lane for him and it was a lovely drive to there as well.
We had never been to Mull before and its funny how even a small ferry crossing is exciting.
The first port of call was Tobermory and some shopping for Emily as this is where the childrens TV programme Balamory was based on.This is where the camera seems to have deleted all our other pictures but yet it hasn't cleared the memory card !! Its very pretty and colourful and guess what, another distillery for Tony so another pressie for him.

We couldn't find a campsite free that night and even Islay was turned away from this Hotel.

So we parked up here at Calgary Bay for the first night.

>
We were told later that in the height of the season you can't move on the island and the traffic is horrendous as the roads are all single track with passing places.
The next day we travelled on the sceanic route and boy was it narrow .
We met a few of these lovely Highland cattle along the way and I had to get out to move them off the track; they were quite frisky wee beasties too.

I am glad that Tony does the driving as I would hate to try and navigate around here and with cars coming towards you ,it made for an interesting journey.


This is were we camped on our second night and the island on the right is Ulva.

We then went on to Iona and on the way we went to see a Weaving Centre at Ardalanish Farm and they are organic and are using the natural Hebridean fleece and other Scottish breeds to weave beautiful cloth and they again gave a great tour.You could buy the cloth and they also made stunning garments.

Mull was busy in places as there was a MacLean Clan gathering with folks coming from all over the world to Duarts Castle and we saw so many folks in kilts etc,very colourful.
We had a few more days on Mull and had one great evening watching sea otters feeding about 30 yds away from us . I have taken a photo but it needs cropping so will show that when I have time to play with it; I was amazed at how big they are, almost the same size as our dogs but with shorter legs and longer tails ,LOL. This family of otters are well known and are pretty used to people watching them if you are patient and sit quietly . Also on the same camp site you can watch dolphins and the previous morning someone had seen a stag wander through the site.
After leaving Mull we meandered down eventually to Penrith where we picked Kath up to come with us to Woolfest. She hadn't planned on coming and had indeed cancelled but we had been trying hard to persuade her to join us which we managed to do the night before . So she arrived at the train station so excited, and that is how she remained for the rest of the trip. Bless her it was lovely to see her enjoying herself and of course I did as well. We met many folks we knew at Woolfest and fellow bloggers as well and the highlight for us was to meet up with
Carrie Anne,Kath Bev and Becky
You know when you meet up with folks and you just click straight away , well that was the way it was with these warm hearted lasses. I can't wait to meet up again , and we will , we never stopped nattering & laughing.
So on to the goodies and I won't go into great detail as you must have either given up reading by now or are just looking at the photies :)

From the right I have some merino silk roving ,enough to make a sweater so that I can dye to what colour I want . I needed more dyes so am trying the Ashford ones to see what they are like. I have some baby alpaca fibre, a skein of alpaca and nylon sock yarn to dye from Andy at Bluefaced.com. A big bag of merino, silk from Winghams in all sorts of shades which should be fun to spin. Another lovely alpaca roving from Fyberspates as I so enjoyed the last one I bought from her. Some fine mohair boucle and sock fibre from Freyalynn. A 500gm cone of 4ply to use for a pattern that Kath bought(can't remember where we bought that ); we both bought the same colour as we liked it (something we do a lot !!)a little bag of bunny fluff to try and see how that spins. Last but not least ,and I haven't photod them ,are two fleece.Both shearling and both from the same lady who weirdly enough we met up at our campsite as she was staying there. One is a Shetland x Bowmont and is white and so soft and the other is a colored Shetland , again a great fleece.
Am I skint? I should say so , but oh what a fun time we had and again like Wonderwool it was like a family gathering with like minded folks . There was another funny coincidence, as camped right next to us were two ladies who turned out to be from Pen y Groes and after much nattering we discovered that one of then was Frankie's step Mum !! Its a small world isn't it ?
I will leave photos of things I made whilst away for another post as the socks are in the wash , all three pairs and the spun yarn needs setting. Also I do think this has to be the longest post ever , so enough for today. That's what happens when you go away for over three weeks, so many great things can happen :)
Now I need to see what you fellow bloggers have been up to whilst I have been away ;)