Ooops!  I didn’t mean to take so long between posts.  I’m sort of buried here, catching up and weeding through pictures from Scotland.  And wrestling with the fall leaves.  At least, until today, we’ve had beautiful weather — we got home just in time to enjoy some very pretty trees.

While we were in the UK, I managed to meet a few more bloggers.  TheManoftheHouse was fantastic and deserves an award for going along with me.  My first meetup was with the fabulous Lucy Locket.  She, of the famous mini-quilt swaps (she’s swapped a ton of quilts — I don’t know how she manages to get them all done) and three adorable children.  We met at K1 Yarns in Edinburgh.  Lucy doesn’t live in Scotland — she lives in Northern England but when she found out I’d be in Edinburgh, she rode the train for several hours to spend an afternoon with us.  We had a great time in K1 Yarns and I just can’t say enough about the shop and its owner.  She even made us each a cup of tea to drink while we visited.  (She was probably hoping that if we were drinking we would shut up.  We talked non-stop and then talked and giggled some more.)  We sat there and exchanged gifts and chatted for at least an hour, maybe more — I lost track of time.    Here we are in our Wilson pose with the quilts we exchanged.

Lucy looks like she’s up to something, doesn’t she?  I gave her a little mini-quilt replica of the quilt I made for Isabelle and she made me a little quilt with an embroidered rendition of a drawing that the children did for me.  Isn’t it adorable?  Can you see where it says “Scruffy helps with Anna’s sewing”?  Too Cute!  I just love it!

Thank you Little Lockets!  And if that weren’t enough, Lucy made me a crochet hook roll.  I’ve been meaning to make one of these forever and just haven’t managed to find the time.  I’m so excited about it — I’ve put a few of my hooks in it already.  I’m sure I have more, I just don’t know where they are.  Now, as I find them, I can put them in their new home.  Look at the cute japanese fabrics that she used.

But wait!  There’s more!  Lucy really spoiled me — she also gave me some ribbons, a notepad, an ornament, adorable recipe cards (which don’t show up well, but trust me they’re awesome), drawings from each of the children and a very cool Cath Kidston bag from Tesco (which, unfortunately is under all of the loot!)

After we exchanged gifts and did a little yarn shopping, we walked down the big hill and visited a few more shops.  Of course, we had to stop by Cath Kidston.  We did a lot of oohing and aahing — mostly over the prices!

We also went to a fun kitchen shop and then Lucy took us to Whittard’s, where I asked her to help me pick out some tea for BigDaddy (since I know nothing about tea).  We even saw one of Isabelle‘s rainbows along the way.  (Speaking of Isabelle, check out this picture — I think she’s teaching that catlet how to study quilting stitches!)

Before I knew it, our afternoon was over and it was time for Lucy to go back home.  We went with Lucy to the train station and bid her farewell.  Thank you SO MUCH Lucy for taking the time to come and see us.  I had a fantastic time and really enjoyed finally being able to meet you.  And thanks to you and the children for all the goodies — I love them all!

Toward the end of our trip, we had yet another blog meet up.  (I told you TheManoftheHouse was very patient!)  Because of our airline schedule when we flew home from Scotland, we were told we would have to spend an overnight in London.  (Oh darn LOL!)  We decided to make it several nights and as an added bonus, while we were there I was able to meet the Flibbertygibbet’s Gail and Make It Up’s Abi.   I met Gail when I very first started blogging.  She had a fabric swap that I joined.  And Abi was one of my partners from that fabric swap.  We met at Waterstone’s Book Store so that TheManoftheHouse would have plenty to do while we visited.  Wow!  What a fun duo.  We talked and talked — Gail was full of good information about everything from London to book suggestions for my upcoming book group (thanks Gail!) and Abi was just as sweet as could be — she had a hard time getting a word in edgewise!  They’re both very talented and have lots of fun stuff on their blogs.  Two hours disappeared before I knew what happened.  I had so much fun getting to know them — it’s so fun to meet people you’ve been e-mailing and reading about for awhile.

So.  Where’s our Wilson picture???  I’m SO MAD.  I forgot to take a picture!  I can only attribute it to being on London overload and being clueless.  Next time Ladies — we NEED a Wilson picture!  We did exchange gifts however.  I gave the girls bunny pin cushions and look at the adorable Liberty Christmas ornaments that Gail gave me.

Aren’t they beautiful? They’ll be perfect on my glass ornament tree and they’ll always remind me of our get-together. Thanks Gail and Abi for taking time out of your busy week to come and meet us. (And thanks for the yummy hot chocolate!)  I had a wonderful time!

Now, back to work. Are you all busily working on Christmas gifts yet? I’m starting to get nervous. I’m hoping to start a few projects this week. Happy Monday!

XOXO,
Anna

Whew!  My breakity break is now over — it was actually over on Sunday night, but it was extended by a sick computer.  Fortunately TheManoftheHouse was able to work some magic so now I can post!

Thanks for all of your great comments about my break.  I’ve had fun reading them all.  I’m sorry to disappoint those of you who were hoping I was off making fun things to share, but TheManoftheHouse and I have had a fantastic adventure and these two adorable kitties were the focus of our trip:

Many of you may recognize these cuties as the catlets from In This Life.  I’ve long been a big fan of Isabelle’s blog, so in June/July when she mentioned on her blog that she was in need of a catlet cat-sitter in late October, I jumped up and down and begged and pleaded “Pick Me, Pick Me, Please Pick Me”!!!  If you don’t recognize the catlets, you might be wondering why I would spend my vacation cat-sitting catlets when I have a fat catlet of my own.  It’s because the Life Family lives here:

The famous city with the castle on the hill — Edinburgh Scotland!  It was so exciting I could barely stand it all fall long.  A trip to one of my favorite places in the whole world and a BIG blog meetup with Isabelle!  Here we are in one of my traditional Wilson poses (and no, it’s not 2006, my map is old):

I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun I had meeting Isabelle and her wonderful family.  They were the ultimate hosts.  Mr. Life picked us up at the airport and we spent the evening with them before they left the next morning on their vacation.  I felt like we were old friends who just hadn’t seen each other in a long time.  We talked non-stop.  Isabelle served us tea and cookies.  We talked some more.  Then we met Daughter2 and Isabelle’s mother, and Isabelle made dinner for all of us.  And then, we talked even more.   I wonder if we could have talked forever?  Even the men seemed comfortable.  The Life family was so gracious in entertaining us and explaining our catlet duties and I felt so guilty because surely they had preparations to make for their trip.  (Maybe they didn’t sleep that night!)

And do you know what the best thing was?  Isabelle and her family and the catlets and her home were just how I imagined them.  She’s just as clever and witty and funny as she is on her blog.  The whole Life family is just the nicest family you could ever hope to meet.  I think we both had a lot of fun with the situation with our real-life friends, who all seemed to be scratching their heads.  When I told my co-workers that I was going to cat-sit for a friend on my vacation they looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.  Until I made them guess where my friend lived.  (For some reason most of them guessed Hawaii.  ???.  Do I look like a Hawaii girl???)

Isabelle was so much more eloquent in her description of this whole blog-friend phenomenon than I could ever be.  I love how she expressed it as an intimacy.  You should go read it and you’ll know why I’m such a big fan.  (You should also go see the adorable pictures she took of a catlet and Daughter2 wrapped up in a ribbon just for me.  I’ll take them both Isabelle!)

Now, back to the catlets.  I feel like their auntie.  I’ve been with them since they arrived at the Life household and I’ve watched them become teenagers.  They seemed to adjust pretty easily to our presence.  But then, I arrived with a kitty favorite — yarn.  What’s not to love?  After the first night, Sirius warmed up to me and spent every night thereafter on my legs as I knit.  (I knew to put my legs up from seeing pictures of Sirius happily stretched out on Mr. Life’s legs.)

Cassie, on the other hand, was a little more aloof.  While Sirius wanted to play most evenings, she was sleeping.  In contrast, Sirius went out to conquer the neighborhood first thing every morning, but Cassie stayed around for her time with the yarn ball (not so much me, but the yarn ball).  Don’t worry, the catlets were never left unsupervised with the yarn — I’ve learned that hard lesson with TheEmptyNestChild.

Cassie made up for her aloofness by the end of the week though.  She very politely begged us not to go on the evening before we left.  (Notice the kittycat version of red-eye LOL.)

TheManoftheHouse and I couldn’t have felt more welcome…by the entire family.  And as an added bonus, we met the adorable Daughter1 and her husband.  They came to visit one night and on another night we even had dinner with them and Isabelle’s charming mother.   I was sorry that Isabelle and Mr. Life weren’t there (and that we weren’t able to meet the famous Dr.Son), but really, how cool was that?  If I didn’t have the pictures to prove that the whole trip happened, I might not believe it myself.  When I started my little blog almost 2 years ago, I never, EVER imagined that it would lead to actually meeting a blog friend, let alone a blog friend in another country.  And what the heck — now we’re international cat-sitters!

So, I’ll stop writing now so you can rest.  When I come back I’ll tell you about the rest of our trip (with more bloggy meet-ups).  I took something like 1200 pictures.  !!!.  Don’t worry, I won’t make you look at all of them, but I think it’s an indication of what a great trip we had.  The weather wasn’t always the best, but it was perfect for Scotland.  This occurred almost every day — except for when it snowed.

Isabelle was so worried that the weather didn’t cooperate, but we were so excited to be in Scotland, we hardly noticed.  Besides, when you get lots of rain, you get lots of rainbows.

We’re lucky to see a few rainbows a year here in the midwest, but I think we must have seen one almost every day in Scotland. They were beautiful! Now when I see a rainbow, I’m going to think of The Life Family. I can’t thank them enough for the tremendous opportunity they gave to us. I only wish we could repay the favor. Don’t you want to come to our cornfields Isabelle? I could show you the Ugly Tree and TheEmptyNestChild and Amish people. And maybe my quilty peep Jewels could hook Mr. Life up with a train or two.  Think about it LOL!!!

XOXO,
Anna