Exit, Pursued by Many Boxes (in overseas mail)

UPDATE: I’m having trouble posting photos from my new computer – must add later. Bah!
UPDATE II: Photos and links added!

Knitting and one of P.G. Wodehouse's Blandings omnibi: perfect plane companions.

Darling readers, I am writing this from Dulles International Airport, from which our daytime flight to London will be departing in just an hour and a half. So you all know that I have survived this far! We have six (6) suitcases checked in, only two (2) of which were over weight. Fabulous Friend Nancy kept telling us that it would be much cheaper to bring items in a suitcase than to ship them, and I can tell you, having visited the UPS store yesterday, that she is ever so right.

The past few weeks have been really hectic, between arrangements for visas, preparing our house for sale (closed last night!), and lots and lots of freecycling. [Have you all heard of Freecycle? It’s kind of like a yarn giveaway for everything else.] I’m not a great mover or packer, and I must admit that I was at the USPS Automated Postal Center at midnight last night, mailing the last of the giveaway packages and sending a few surprises out as well. [People, I love the APC like we grew up together, but no one should be there at midnight.]

So, our flight boards in a half hour, and I’m prepared for our super-exciting daytime flight. I wouldn’t take a daytime flight to the UK if this were for a vacation, because you lose a day to travel. That said, I have high hopes for it in this case. Mr. Trask is 6’5″ tall, and neither of us is a good sleeper on planes – whereas he is a good writer on a plane, and I am a good knitter-and-movie-watcher. We’ll see how this goes. I haven’t had much sleep in the past three days, so am hoping to stay up on the flight and then crash when we arrive at Heathrow at 10 p.m. local time.

Corinne in Charcoal: too much contrast?

While on the plane, I’ll be knitting Corinne from Knitty, watching whatever terrible movie is available on the flight, and reading from Life at Blandings, an omnibus of three P.G. Wodehouse novels. This particular book has come with me on many overseas trips – it’s been to Greece, to France, to Italy, and back and forth to the UK many times. Blandings novels are the ultimate comfort reading to me – they’re well-written and full of social slapstick, and they always have happy endings – but the complex nature of Wodehouse’s plotting (and the fact that he wrote so darned many novels) means that the reader doesn’t quite see how it’s all going to work out until the end. [But I digress. And I suspect that I have mentioned all this to you people before.]

Back to Knitting: I thought about doing another knitting challenge like the ones I did for Hibernian and Heathrow, but couldn’t get it together to put the right yarn into my bag. Corinne is a fun sweater in that it’s knit in one piece, side-to-side. I’m working in a kettle-dyed yarn, and the white-gray-black contrast in this particular brand of yarn may be a bit too much for garter stitch (I’m still deciding). That said, I’m enjoying watching the garment take shape. If I finish the sweater mid-flight, I’m going to try to make something out of this pink ball of yarn that I found at the bottom of my purse (don’t ask). Not sure how much yarn is in this ball or what I can make. We shall see!

Corinne with mysterious pink ball of yarn. What could it become?

They’re calling our flight, so I must add photos and get out of here. So many of you have e-mailed, commented, or tweeted to offer us encouragement and good wishes – thank you so, so much. And those of you in the area were supportive and patient and kind through this entire process. I can’t say enough about how much I love you all, dear readers, whether we’ve met in person or not. Next post will be in Blighty – tell me in the comments what you want to hear about first!