Photo an Hour l 8th November

I am loving these Photo an Hour posts you know. It means I have a guaranteed topic to post about once a month - anything to save me from the horror of working out what I'm supposed to write about.

I was initially quite excited about the choice of the 8th November as I knew I was going to be away visiting my Dad in Somerset - a change of scenery is usually a good omen from some more interesting photos than when you're just twatting about at home - but unfortunately the heavens poured down upon us most of the day so you can expect a fairly crochet-laden post coming up.

Pop over to Is That You Darling to see others' posts and to find out the date of the next Photo an Hour day which will be in December. And remember you can also join in on Twitter and Instagram using #photoanhour

This was Saturday 8th November...

10am - A late start to the day with a little read in bed. Mrs Dalloway is November's Classic as part of my Not Really Resolutions - I purposely picked quite a thin one as I have been running a bit behind schedule lately!

11am - Ablutions time. Anyone else remember a day when just getting ready was a case of splashing your face with some water and being good to go? I'm not even a girly girl and I'm astonished at the amount of paraphernalia I seem to cart about with me, although that's mostly due to the fact that I don't empty anything out and just add more to the pile...

12.10pm - Rubbish weather? Can only mean one thing - time for crochet. But what on earth could it be that I'm making?

1.10pm - Lunchtime and a continuation of the absolutely god-awful weather

2.10pm - What am I making? A Father Christmas of course! Since swearing that I was going to make a job lot of them and sell them at Christmas I made three and then promptly made no more. It is time to get my bum in gear because these guys really don't take that long to work up. In fact this would have been completed much earlier if it wasn't for the fact that I had a complete brain malfunction and forgot to change back to red wool and merrily crocheted along for 6 rows of 42-odd stitches. Yaaaaaay.

3.15pm - Finished! I had no idea these guys worked up this quickly. Thank goodness for Photo an Hour, I would never have known that it takes roughly an hour to work up the bobble for Father Christmas' hat, his hat trim, his face, beard and moustache, attach all the above and sew on a little face. Good to know these things.

4.30pm - This is how I know I'm in the country. You go somewhere to buy dog food and outside they have what can only be described as a fuckton of carrots. It's an official measurement. For a second I thought that people in Somerset really liked their rabbits, before twigging that they're probably for horses.

5.25pm - You see this is why Photo an Hour is brilliant. There I was idly browsing through #photoanhour tweets when I came across Louisa who was talking about editing some Carnival photos. I couldn't believe it as I was on my way to the North Petherton Carnival, something I had never ever heard about until Dad piped up that it would be where we would be spending our evening. How very cool is that?! (Check out Louisa's post from last year which explains what exactly it is I'm talking about). Anyway. 5.25pm we were stuck in some immense carnival traffic trying to get off the M5 and into North Petherton before the road closed for the Carnival.

6.20pm - Officially trapped in North Petherton with time to kill before the Carnival started at 7pm there was nothing for it but to hunker down in the bowling club house with a hot dog and pint of cider.

7.35pm - One of my least favourite things is standing still in the cold. Be warned that going to a Carnival involves a lot of standing still in the cold. I was just thankful it wasn't wet as well. To keep warm I jumped about like an idiot in to the road to see if I could see the start of it. We had a long wait on our hands...

8.30pm - The first float! Hurrah. After an hour and a half of standing in the cold staring at a hedge this was a welcome sight. Little did I know what I was about to witness. It was absolutely mind boggling.

9.25pm - Honestly. When someone says you're going to see an illuminated float parade you don't really know what's in store for you. This was insane and will clearly have a post of its own once I've gone through the 4,000 pictures that I took and begun to compose my thoughts about it.

10.30pm - Back in the car and on the way home down the back roads

11.30pm - Back home feeling cold to our very bones and glad to be in the warmth. Max was also happy to see us but mostly sad that he had been abandoned for the evening.