Booties in Retreat

 Through these portals pass the most wonderful knitters in the world!

See? The lace arrow points the way up the hill to the cabin where 8 knitters had a fabulous time knitting, drinking, eating, soaking in the hot tub, and laughing and laughing and laughing. It rained a lot, but who cares?

I reached a major landmark--the 40th and final pair of booties in the Big Mess o' Booties for my daughter's upcoming deliveries. Celebrated with an introduction to Screech, the Newfoundland rum made infamous by the Yarn Harlot. There's a quaint ceremony called the Screech-in, which involves reciting some doggerel and kissing a codfish (on the lips!). This is supposed to make one an honorary Newfoundlander. A Canadian friend recommends wearing a lot of chapstick for the fish kissing so that your lips don't taste of cod for hours afterward. Not having the required codfish, I Screeched-in the ultimate pair with a Screech and orange juice and left it at that.

By the way, in contrast to the sound of its name, Screech is an amazingly smooth rum when drunk neat. Not at all like its reputation from its early days. Long may your big jib draw!

And it didn't even rain all the time. There was a brief window in which the clouds broke apart to show what they'd been doing to the mountaintops: