The Land of the Little Tin Bird

This weekend I went on an adventure. I went on an adventure to the land of the Little Tin Bird. I know I'm on a meeting bloggers in real life kick this year, first The Curious Cat and now Heather. Don't be jealous of my travelling ways people.

The reasons for this trip were many;

1. I should have seen her in Hull a while back but I couldn't get the time off work

2. I desperately needed a trip to a yarn shop that sells Stylecraft and I knew she had one

3. I just wanted to meet her didn't I?!

This trip was exciting because it involved me going into the dreaded country - you know me, city girl and all that, the country scares me and once I had changed trains at Leeds I noticed two things;

1. The average age of the people on the train had increased by 30 years

2. Lots of sheep in fields

However I needn't have been panicky because my trusty guide soon took me under wing, marching me directly to the yarn shop. Yarn me up people. My need was so desperate because I did something foolish some time ago - I tried to buy wool blind off the internet. I've decided to make a blanket for my Dad and his wife for Christmas and I sat down and looked at some colours of Stylecraft on the internet and duly picked ones that I felt went together. Then I got my order and nearly had a heart attack - the lovely burnt orange that I thought I'd picked is actually luminous orange (god knows what the people were thinking as they packed my order, they must have thought I was totally colour blind).

So I needed to get new colours, or colours that at least went with the colours I'd already got. Normally this makes me go a little crazy but I knew that with secret weapon Heather at my side I would be successful because this lady knows how to pick colours. I was right and whether she realised it or not, I rather cleverly got her to pick my colours for me. I'm a sly fox like that. (Sorry, I forgot to take pictures. Apologies.)

The land of the Little Tin Bird also brought me face to face with my other nemesis.

Hills.

One thing you need to know about Hull? No hills. Seriously. No. hills. We are flat flat flat. This is amazing in many ways but it means that as soon as I'm within a certain distance from the Humber and the land begins to slope, I become nearly totally incapable of walking.

The walk up to Heather's house in my opinion should only be undertaken with the use of an oxygen tank and crampons but she scampered up it like a little rabbit whilst I weezed away behind her. Seriously. It's virtually Snowdon.

I saw all the sights. All of them. There was the most amazing pizza for lunch. So amazing that I'm thinking of going back just to have some more of it.

I saw some rather famous hills from a distance.

I saw some of the Castle (you know I love a bit of castle action. Going in it is on my list of things to do next time I visit).

I saw some canal action. With some frantic duck action. Love a bit of duck action.

I saw a real life turning water mill. Amazing!

I saw a waterfall. Brilliant!

I went in the most gorgeous shop ever and bought a cat necklace. (And I forgot to take a picture of that as well. Sorry I'm not on form at the moment.)

And throughout all of this I kept having to remind myself that I don't actually know Heather. It's hard to explain, I don't mean that in the sense that I have made the mistake of reading someone's blog and believing that I know everything about them, but I actually had to keep reminding myself that I didn't know her. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a total stranger I was spending the day with - shouldn't it have felt a bit weirder than that?

Well whatever it was, the day passed far too quickly for my liking and before I knew it I was back on the train and heading for the Mothership. Much to the relief of my Mum who can't quite grasp the concept of meeting up with people you know from the internet and was pretty certain I was going to be coming back in a bodybag. (But whatever you do do not tell her that I actually went in Heather's house for a cup of tea because that was one thing she definitely told me not to do and I do try and do everything my Mum tells me.)


And do you know what? I might just have gotten over my fear of the countryside. Because the land of the Little Tin Bird might just have it all - lovely countryside and yet there was actually a Tesco in sight. Perfect.

(Also. I actually saw the real life Lucy and nearly had a laughing attack. But I played it cool don't worry. Although I did feel like I should curtsy.)