UK Ravelry Day looms ...

... and I still don't have a Ravelry badge!

After attending the Ravelry gathering at Get Knitted back in January '08 I meant to work out how to get one.

So I am hoping to meet some Ravellers, hitherto only known electronically, in Coventry on Saturday.

One day soon I may even get round to a bit of a catch-up on life. My phone and camera have been busy recording aspects of both daily life and our occasional travels.

So far the travels have mostly been linked to IRSE visits with Ian.

We managed to add a few days proper holiday to visits to Poznan (Poland) last November, Vienna in February and the convention last week in Madrid.

The smaller technical visits are good, as I get to go along and see the signalling installations/factories etc.

The convention is so big that they run a separate guest programme. Last week there were about 90 of us guests. We got bussed around, often to the same places as the delegates who went by train.

One of the highlights was travelling from Madrid to Zaragoza on the new AVE service. We had a special train, and got a chance to be in the cab whilst travelling at 300 km/hour.

Zaragoza itself was fairly hot, and our tour of the city was all too brief.

From a distance we saw the remains of last year's Expo with Zaha Hadid's bridge making a striking contrast to the new Delicias station.

Many of the Expo pavilions appeared to be in stages of demolition. We were whisked by in our coach on our way to the city centre where we visited the Basilica del Pilar and the Aljafera.

Lots more to tell later about these trips, and now for a gratuitous picture taken in Nottingham earlier this year.

This balloon had only partially escaped the bustle of the city!