With absolutely impeccable timing, the German Rail is on strike since yesterday and all of today. Fortunately, this was announced a few days beforehand, so I could look into my options to get to my tablet weaving workshop...

With a normal train connection, it's about the same amount of time for me to drive and to take the train. However, train means that I can do something else while travelling (like reading, or knitting), and driving means... driving. So I usually strongly prefer using the train.

Which got me into a conundrum: Brave the strike, take the train (there's still a decent connection I can take which is, according to the schedule, going to run) or go for the "safe" option and drive instead, on roads that are probably a good bit more full than usual, and on a Friday afternoon to boot? So after weighing the pros and cons, I've decided to be adventurous, booked seat reservations for the trains that are supposed to bring me where I want to go, and now I'm off.

Wish me luck! 

It looks like it's the time of year for announcements of textile events again! First of all, one for a conference in the UK in June: 

And then, also in the UK, the Early Textiles Study Group offers a practical course. Here's the description, and if you are interested, go to  https://www.earlytextilesstudygroup.org/etsg-courses.html for more!

Some nice news for a change - a very rare species of rodent has been re-discovered: The Bayerische Kurzohrmaus (Bavarian Short-Eared Mouse), a sort of vole that lives mostly underground. Which is the reason why it was not seen for about 60 years after being first discovered.

There's an article with links to a video about it (all German) and some photos here at the Tagesschau page. And I do think that pictures of little critters with truly tiny ears and eyes are a nice thing for a Friday afternoon!

We're living in the age of automated translation, and it's actually getting where, in some cases, it's possible to work with the outcome. Mind you, proper translations made by human beings who are fluent in both the source and the target language will always be a lot better, but at least things are not always complete gobbledigook anymore.

How is that topic popping up here, you ask? Well, because of some going-s-off-on-a-tangent. (In German, by the way, I'd say "vom Hölzchen auf's Stöckchen kommen", which literally is to get to a small piece of wood from a stick. There's no translation that really catches this in English - it's when you start with something and then have another topic and then another. Kind of like when you want to look something up in an encyclopaedia and accidentally read another entry first, or afterwards, and there's a cross-reference to something else, so of course you read that too, and then on the way to the next one something else catches your eye...)

So - I was wondering about translating stuff into hieroglyphs, and did an internet search and found that most "translators" only do a phonetic transcription, which sort of defeats the purpose. But it turns out that there is a sort-of translator by Google, called Fabricius. the amount of words on there is, unfortunately, limited, but it's still sort of fun. There's also this helpful list of dictionaries where you can look up things - and more or less make your own translations. 

...and because that day sort of ran away from me, and it's suddenly evening... here's an unmotivated cat picture for you: 

I hope you had a good start into the week!

Not Friday yet... but almost. Almost! However, there's three more things on my to-do-list for today that need doing, so I'd better move on. One of the things already checked off today?

Making more bands for distaffs, both for the DIY kits (provide your own stick) and for the ready-made distaffs. 

That's always a nice, calm bit of work - cutting the bands, then hemming one end (the free end, once the band is attached to the distaff). A little bit of really easy sewing, perfect to listen to a podcast or something similar while doing it.

There's also been some cutting of pin shanks, some yarn winding, and some printing of instructions - so I'm slowly getting there again. Now there's a little more writing work to be done, and then dressing distaffs to send them off for the workshop tomorrow. Plus more writing, plus some planning for exhibition stuff.

Well, it is certainly not getting boring around here!

Finally Friday - a little bit more of writing work to do, and then I'm looking forward to the weekend, first a little bit of knitting conference tomorrow, and then some time to fully relax and do nothing on Sunday. 

Where hanging out (or falling off the wall) in places like this counts. Maybe not as doing nothing, but more as a relaxing activity.

And then next week there's spindle whorls to sort (a fresh delivery has arrived today), and distaffs to prep and send off for the workshop in March, and maybe some more pins to make. It's definitely not going to be boring then either!