In Which Our Heroine Realizes She is a Flawed Human Being

After spending our one brief night in Paris, we boarded the high-speed train to Libourne, then a regional train to Sainte Foy la Grande. From there, we were met by a cousin who lives here





and is studying to become a Buddhist monk. It was a full day of traveling, but the countryside was beautiful, especially as we traveled south into the wine country of Bordeaux.

We spent an interesting 2 days here. I managed to knit some while here, but the days were quite full of activities – and evenings were short since bells began waking the community at 5 a.m. The only “down” side was the weather – it rained most of the time we were at the monastery but the countryside was still beautiful.



We had the chance to visit an 11th century church located about 6 km from the monastery.





We lived (as much as we could in our uneducated way) as the monks do for two days…two loooong days. And I’m sorry to report that the experience made me realize that I am a completely shallow human being – because two days was more than plenty for me. And I could never give up the stash in order to lead a life of poverty. I really respect our cousin for the choice he has made. As for me, I came away grateful to get back to the world and happy to feel re-connected to what is happening in the world.

The strong yarn mojo has continued. (In retrospect, I firmly believe it was the yarn mojo which got us bumped up to business class on the flight. Or was it because the knitting gods don't mind when I go into the state of Illinois as long as I have the intent to leave the state as soon as possible and do not engage in any knitting activities there?)

Well, the yarn mojo continued – even in rural France. On the day we left, our cousin drove us to Ste. Foy la Grande early so he could show us a little bit of the town before we had to board the train. We were walking down a street, in search of a specific bakery he wanted to take us to, when all of a sudden my head whipped around so fast I’m shock I didn’t end up with severe case of whiplash. My knitting subconscious saw a shop - across the street - named PHILDAR. I stood in the middle of the sidewalk for a minute, wondering why I was starring at that shop, until I realized what my knitting instincts already knew.

This could only mean one thing, children.

Yarn.

They tried to camouflage the fact that they sold yarn by having only clothing in the front windows and clothing in the front of the store. But the knitting mojo was not so easily fooled. Unfortunately, I did not have the presence of mind to take a picture of the shop. I controlled myself – only purchased enough for a child’s scarf – mainly because DH was there and I didn’t want to load myself down with purchases this early in the trip.



Excuse the crap photo - it's hard to surreptitiously take a photo while DH is completing his morning ablution. I can't think of any reasons I could give that he would not immediately question. Any ideas for when DH finally does catch me photographing my yarn?