I had a really good day in London on Monday - I caught the train that leaves about 10:15am, it was on time and no stops until Lomdon. Funny, when I was going through the British passport control in Paris, the girl in the next queue was saying to the agent "I'm from New Zealand", so I looked across and said "me, too!" We had a nice chat before boarding, she was travelling around Europe and had just had a week in Paris seeing the sights. Goodness she must have saved hard for such a trip, I know what the exchange rate is with the NZD.



In London, I visited John Lewis, where I bought yarn and some underwear - including Spanx, very inelegant looking, but they are surprisingly comfortable and really smooth out any bulges. Then I walked down to Liberty and spent a while wandering around there, as usual I could have bought the entire store, but refrained. Then down to Piccadilly, where I visited Waterstones and Hatchards, and bought a large pile of books. In between, I went to Pret A Manger and Starbucks, since, as usual, it was boiling hot. London is so huge, you can only do a little bit of it in one day - I caught the 7pm train back and slumped exhausted into my seat.



Just a warning for anyone who is arriving at Gare du Nord and taking a taxi - the men who try to take your bags and put them in the taxi are NOT employed by the station to do this, they are beggars who have taken it upon themselves to do this. They actually do look a bit sinister, and they just come up to you and try to grab your bags. My taxi driver told me that nothing really bad has happened yet, but it is only a matter of time.... the taxi drivers have complained to the station management, who apparently have a plan in place for whatever could happen (stolen bag, assault etc), but for some reason can't prevent the guys from being at the taxi stands. It's quite different from the airport where the taxi queue managers are employed by the airport and wear uniforms.



Apart from that, the week has been fairly dull, a lot of tidying up and cleaning, and half a day at work yesterday, to finish my expenses claims, fill in a lot of papers for Estonian bureaucracy and scan my French resident's permit for the racist HR that we have. Honestly, they think of all sorts of things, I don't know why they don't like me, but they started on day 1, when they got my name wrong and told me it didn't matter, because it was a foreign name. Like yours, I said, like everyone's, but they didn't get this. These are the ones who told Suzette that they weren't going to accept any more foreign employees in France, because it was too much trouble for them!



The one bright spot of all this bureaucracy is that I am dealing with the same lawyer in the US who found the right person in Cyprus to get me the work permit there, so I am quite relaxed about the temporary residence permit for Estonia. And of course she has a lot of copies of my papers, so I don't need to send her much - it really makes a difference when people are organised like that.



I am flying tomorrow, but going back to work on Tuesday, as I need the day after flying, if at all possible. I've been very good and have not looked at work stuff at all during the week, only to see what has arrived in my inbox, and if there are hundreds of questions about anything, but it is not too alarming, only about three mails I have to answer, and no more than twenty questions, I think.

I'm back home, after what seemed like very long flights, which were punctuated by phone calls from work in various airport lounges. I felt so ill on Friday that I thought I must have caught the pork flu from someone on the flight, but happily that went away yesterday, so it can't be that. I'm in one of my "I hate flying" moods, which I know is totally unfair, as many people would greatly enjoy the amount of travelling I do, and I get to do it in reasonable conditions.

Since returning, I have not done a lot, except watch "Lark Rise to Candleford", series 2, and tidy up here a bit. Yesterday I tidied up some Debbie Bliss "Como" yarn by knitting it! I made the outside of the knitting bag in the first Debbie Bliss magazine, now all I need is some handles and some lining. I've also hauled out a number of bags with UFOs in them, and have been stitching away on one of these, so far. Watch over the next week for progress.

Tomorrow I am going on my London excursion, so I have to get up at a reasonable time, and actually get dressed as well - this can be the problem, I tend to look at my email before I get dressed, and then it is lunchtime! I hope London is as fine and sunny as it is here - I have reports from NZ at the moment that the weather is vile...

On Thursday I will be going to Paris and staying home all next week, it's my vacation days I have to use up by the end of May.

I am looking forward to it, although we are so busy at the moment, having just started writing designs for new developments. I seem to have all the very complex ones, of course, which I suppose is semi-fair. I have to complete another one by the end of tomorrow, plus do a very complex expenses claim, because of course they've just told us that there is a this-week-deadline for these. Plus everyone seems hung up on how many days I am actually going to be in which country for the foreseeable future. I've said to the new PD that I can decamp to Copenhagen whenever required, this is no hardship for me at all.

Re stitching, not a lot of progress, but I have nearly finished some Louisa Harding fingerless mittens that I bought yarn for in London this time last year. I plan to go over to London for the day on Monday, this is a bank holiday there, but John Lewis and Waterstones will be open, and this is what I care about. I must look out my Oyster card, I love this card, so good to go around on buses and just wave it at the card reader.

Roll on the vacation, the past two weeks have been a little fraught - we have new girl, who thinks the world revolves around her, and she is always right. She informed me last week that no-one in Germany wears bathing costumes, they all swim with nothing on, and I'm wondering just how this reconciles with all the German bathing costumes I have bought over the years. But she was quite categorical, so I suppose I am wrong! People like that do get a bit tiresome.

Yesterday we had a work trip to the Open Air Museum on the outer area of Tallinn - it is a very interesting collection of old farms and other buildings from all areas of Estonia that have been brought to this site. One interesting thing is the village swing, above you see two colleagues on it, but actually four could play at once! And there are ones that are even bigger, our Estonian friends told us.

Apart from the farms, my favourite building was the chapel, which is 300 years old, and there are still services in it regularly, several times a year, or you can get married there also. There is an old village inn also, where we had a traditional meal of herrings, followed by potato with mushroom sauce, and a dessert of cream grain and jam (a lot nicer than it sounds, actually quite delicious). After that we did go into the city and have cocktails, some people until rather late and I understand there is a case of suspected Margarita poisoning today, as we have one person missing.

Normally we would not carry on like this, but it was a special occasion, as it was a leaving do for our project director, we are all rather sad that he is leaving, as he is adorable. There is a replacement, who seems OK, but he's just not the same as our old friend. We've given the leaving one an Estonian football shirt with "Grandfather" in Estonian ("Vanaisa") printed on the back, plus a card on which we all wrote in our best Estonian, naturally with a rather limited vocabulary!

So I am sitting here rather sadly trying to work - I have a lot of design documents to write, which normally I enjoy - with the others, all of whom are also sad, with the exception of one new woman who has arrived only this week. I am also rather tired (although not suffering from suspected Margarita poisoning, I don't drink them), and want to go to bed early tonight!

This is the almost completed (as of last evening, it is completed, but I took this earlier in the day) LHN Travelling Stitcher needlebook panel:
The colours are just great and go really well with the actual accessories, which I will photograph when the panel is attached.

And here is my rose, given to me by the clients on Friday:

I arrived here after a rather strenuous flight - I went to the airport early, which achieved the desired aim of getting through security before the crowds (and there were crowds again, as there were planes for Zurich, Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Tallinn all departing from the same satellite at the same time). Then I just sat there and stitched and read until it was time to board. Trying not to think about the loo, because there are none inside the security area, totally ridiculous if you ask me. One could go out, but coming back in again is difficult....

At Copenhagen, I did the usual grocery shopping and bought some candles as well, then stitched again until I got on the plane. I have now worked out that it is best to get on the Copenhagen to Tallinn plane last, because then I can just take the most empty row in the front cabin. The staff are starting to recognise me, and don't seem to mind if I do that. Unlike the woman who tried it last time and was smartly asked for her boarding pass and sent up the back, which was the class she had paid for. Why do people try this? Do they think the airline staff are stupid? The other ones I think are nuts are the French guys who moved the "Economy After This Row" sign from in front of their row to behind it (the signs are velcroed on to the top of the seat), and caused a bit of consternation when the staff did the count and found three extra people in Economy Extra. But as soon as they looked at the boarding passes, all was revealed. What some people will do for a free snack and drink!

At Tallinn, I bought as much wine as I could carry (not a great deal, so) and taxied back here, to unpack and do some work. With a brief excursion to the supermarket downstairs to buy salad things. I'm now charging phones and camera, and doing washing. I was going to take a photo of my almost finished needlecase pocket, but no battery left in the camera, and both phones ran out of battery as well!

I should go to bed, as I am getting up tomorrow to go to the spa (this gets me out while the maid is here), then plan a long afternoon and evening completing my spreadsheet of questions (client) and answers (me). It could be a long week for us all.