Well that will brighten the day!

It's grey and dreary, with only semi-impressive thunder-boomers rolling across the landscape.

But that's okay, because I got presents in the mail to brighten up my day. (Okay, they probably don't count as presents if you bought them for yourself, but hey - I don't get a lot of the other kind of presents so I'll take what I can get.)

First up:Fifteen bright and cheery balls of Louisa Harding's Kashmir Aran (55% merino, 35% microfibre, and 10% cashmere). In real life they aren't quite so lemony looking as they are in the picture. It's more a a nice warm, sunny yellow.

You may wonder why I bought yellow yarn when I was just recently grumbling about too much yellow in the yarn I'm using for Zetor. Well, grumblings aside, (which has more to do with the yellow, pink, beige combo in above mentioned yarn than with yellow itself) I actually love the colour yellow - in the right shades of course.

I love a nice soft baby yellow, a warm, rich happy yellow, a comforting honey yellow and of course a deep, brooding mustard yellow.

In fact, as a child my favourite colours were pink and yellow and I really wanted a yellow bedroom. Of course, that would have meant removing in about 50 years and 15 layers of wallpaper (and that's not hyperbole) from the walls, so mom compromised by making me a nice yellow quilt and matching pillow which I loved to death.

That said, as an adult, when I moved with Mom and Dad from the city, I immediately painted over the yellow walls in my new bedroom. And my bedroom here is yellow and I'm just itching to paint over it (a nice soothing green in fact) - what I really want now is a nice yellow kitchen (which ironically is currently green).

So back to the yarn - I think this is going to be used for some sort of yoked cardigan - something that will add a bit of cheer to dreary winter days.

The other present is just as good if not as colourful:Three new books! I haven't had new books in months. Okay - two of them are graphic novels (okay, comic books) that won't take me more than an hour to read - but when you're reading you favourite books for the 35th time in six months, it might just be time for something new.

They are from my two favourite authors; Patricia Briggs - Home Coming which is a graphic novel of her character, Mercy Thompson's beginnings, and Silver Borne, which is the latest Mercy Thompson novel; and George R.R. Martin - The Hedge Knight Sword Sworn, which is a graphic novel set in his magical world of Westeros and his A Song of Ice and Fire series. Mr. Martin is in the process of writing the much anticipated next installment of this series, and he's been working on it for about six years or so, so it will be nice to dive back into the world while I'm waiting.

So, if you don't see any knitting content for a day or so, know that it's because I'm battling vampires and evil faeries, or jousting with hedge knights and tournament groupies.