Anna Bright Design

So, I’m sitting in my room at the hotel where I’m staying in Cockermouth, and I can hear in the sitting room next door a group of lovely ladies who have spent two days travelling here from the north of Scotland. They are carding, spinning, knitting and crocheting, and I’ve been chatting with them every time I’ve gone to or from my room. In the next room to me is ClaireUK; we’ve just got back from a knit-and-natter at Graysonside, where I got to meet Amanda and her lovely daughter Lily!

Graysonside is a campsite and b&b that has been completely overrun by taken over by knitters for the weekend. I had a bit of a role reversal there: I left my knitting in the hotel, so I was the only person there without needles, a hook, or even a spinning wheel!

I do most of my knitting on the train, where I am always the only person doing it, so it was funny to feel like the odd one out for not doing it!

Cockermouth is about a six-hour drive from where I live, or nine hours by train. Instead of either of these, I used some airmiles to fly to Manchester then hired a car to drive the rest of the way. Not only was this the quickest way to get here but also, scarily, the cheapest!

Well, it would have been the cheapest if I hadn’t got distracted by the Bobbi Brown duty free make-up place… I went to buy a lip gloss, and also came out with this:

Look! Detachable bits! It’s such a neat idea – a compact with detachable eyeshadow and blushers, so you can buy your favourite colours and keep them all together! (Shallow? Moi? Absolutely!)

My other goody for the day is a bag of fabulous home-cooked cookies given to me by Amanda:

They’re delicious, but I have to stop eating them or I am going to be sick…