Sadamarket is a shopping centre right opposite the ferry terminal in Tallinn - it's very much aimed at tourists, and it has large alcohol and cigarette shops, plus bars and some other things we won't mention. There are a lot of tacky clothes shops, as per the sample above. But there are also a few shops that are worth it. On the second floor there is a sweater shop that has large stocks of Estonian yarn, both wool and linen. There are a couple of shops downstairs that have linen goods that are quite nice, and a souvenir shop with drawings of Tallinn that are quite attractive.

I went on a walk this morning via this shopping centre and the Old Town, then back to Kaubamaja and my supermarket. It was raining, but I really needed to get out today, because I spent ten hours yesterday finishing two external designs. I'm not working at all today, and have spent the afternoon knitting a hat with earflaps in bulky wool - I need to crochet around it and add some ribbons tomorrow, it is too late now to buy either a crochet hook or the ribbons. I'm preparing for thw inter, obviously, and have got a book called "Boutique Knits" that I bought in London. It's as good as the Louisa Harding accessories book that I knitted nearly all the patterns from.

Tomorrow back to work - I have to go to Paris on Monday night for a Tuesday meeting and fly back Tuesday night, this is insanity, but I don't really get a choice.

I'm starting to do some catch-up posts....... these are photos I took at Pirita, a beach-side suburb of Tallinn a couple of weeks ago.

First, a small cottage beside the Pirita convent, I think it's cute:
Here are the ruins of the old convent:

The weather in Stockholm was really terrible, rain from the time I arrived to the time I left. So I didn't go to Skansen, the open air museum, or walk around Djurgaarden etc. I did manage to walk around Gamla Stan, those cobblestones are quite hard going, but it is so picturesque - and it has attractions, such as the Royal Palace and Storkyrkan, that are inside.

I also of course visited a few bookshops, yarn shops and department stores, and bought quite a few books. I wish I could read Swedish, there are so many books that are not translated that look really excellent. And I wish I could have found an embroidery shop, I looked everywhere I could think of before I went to try and track one down - if anyone knows of anything, please tell me! I am certainly going back there, as it is only an hour's flight from here, and the weather can't always be terrible.

Must go, as I am meant to be writing very, very fast this morning to catch up on my designs......

I'm sitting in the airport in Tallinn waiting for the late plane to Stockholm which doesn't leave until 22:30 - I decided to treat myself to a weekend away, because I've been just submerged in external designs recently. For the uninitiated, these are complete functional designs for new developments for our clients, and the architects do them, assisted by the designers. In my case, my designer is very young, and quite new, but she does good work. My main problem is that some of them take a long time, and then I get queries on them after the reviews from the internal designers, who are in another hemisphere.

I've been going home and going to bed for a couple of hours most days, because I am so tired after staring at the screen all day, and having phone calls with internal designers and writing them notes and so on, not to mention being interrupted every three seconds by our new colleauge, who seems to think that all the rest of us are there to help her. She is new to the project, not to the company, I mean, and really is most odd. She is not a native English speaker (quite a few of the team are not) and she seems to have the odd idea that it is appropriate to use 4 letter English words in the office. We are all sitting around the table,and suddenly she will just burst out "****!", which is slighlty disconcerting. I am used to bad language now and then, but this is constant - I am afraid she thinks it is cool or something, she is very into cool. Part of going away for the weekend is not being dragged into going to a bar with her on Saturday night - hopelessly uncool that I am, I always want to leave early to do my stitching.

Although chance would be a fine thing.... I haven't finished anything new yet, although I have a couple of things on the boil. I would like to have a chance tomorrow evening, but I do have to do some work over the weekend, if I want to finish my designs by the summer holidays.

In Stockholm, I just want to do a little gentle sightseeing and shopping, a full report on Sunday, I hope.