Today marked the first day that I've been outside in about ten days. The weather was lovely: crisp and on the cusp of winter. I walked through the arboretum down to the newly opened Waitrose where I hoped to find fresh baker's yeast and buttermilk .. and maybe even a loaf of rye bread. I had to queue to get to the milk section(!) and, nope, no buttermilk and no fresh baker's yeast and no loaves of rye bread. The quest continues - although technically I am intolerant to buttermilk and technically I can buy buttermilk at an organic green grocer's a brisk thirty minute walk away from where I live. But: bah! Knitting-wise I have conquered the dreaded Chart B on my orange shawl and in my utter joy to get to the relatively easy Chart C, my brain went out the window. I have now tinkered back seven rows (not easy in splitty 2-ply baby alpaca) and am about to start Chart C again. Hopefully this time I will concentrate and not just go "Ha! Only half the rows are important now. Which row am I on again?"

I don't know how many of you watched (and thus loved) the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog webcast earlier this year, but those of you who fall prey to anything Joss Whedonesque, you might get a kick out of the prequel, Horrible Turn, which is a fanmade prequel. I have only watched the first episode, but liked what I saw much more than expected.

And now our dreams of travelling on the Orient Express have been crushed, I have been looking into other possibilities. I'm quite taken with the idea of the Transsiberian railway. Instead of spending £3,700 on a 36-hour train trip, we could spend £5,600 on a 26 day long train journey running Moscow - Ekatarina - Irkutsk - Ulaan Bataar - Beijing. I even speak rudimentary Russian (handy and useful!). I have long wanted to visit Russia - so why not go all-out? At the moment it is not feasible for us to do this - money and work reasons - but in my head the Transsiberian sounds like much better than the Orient Express.

Ah.