Good Day to Hit The Road

According to Flickr, “Góðan daginn” is how you say “Hello” in Icelandic. It looks a bit like “Good Day” (if you squint and tilt your head sideways!). But while this day may be all about Iceland, it’s not exactly good, is it? How many of us knew that the volcanoes on Iceland were active? Or would start exploding? Or when they explode, planes can’t fly? Not me for one – but I’m learning fast!

Thanks to Iceland, “Good Day” is not how I would describe this day because the non-flying-ness of the planes means a non-coming-home-ness of the DH. So let’s not focus on how far from Góðan daginn this day is. Let’s ignore the fact that we’ve yet to learn the Icelandic for “Thanks, we’ve had enough!”

Let’s instead focus on a recent, very-good-day-indeed: my trip to The Yarn Room on Saturday 10th April.

The Yarn Room, Ashford, Co. Wicklow

I set off for The Yarn Room on a beautifully sunny afternoon. It’s a very easy drive – motorway almost all the way. I had to take it a bit “on faith”, as I got closer to my destination. My map isn’t sufficiently up-to-date to show the latest motorway extension and I began to worry that Ashford wouldn’t be clearly sign-posted. Thankfully, I didn’t get too “jittery” and stayed on the motorway long enough for the correct turn-off. I was impressed to discover it’s exactly 59mins from my driveway – in North County Dublin – to parking outside The Yarn Room – South Co. Wicklow. That’s sticking to the speed-limits the entire way – thank you, cruise-control!

Oh! What a haven awaited me! The bright, sunny shop reflects perfectly the dispostion of the owner, Stephanie, and her staff. I was greeted like an old friend, even though I’ve only met Stephanie once before. I was and made feel very welcome and very-much at ease. Being surrounded by gorgeous yarn and fiber also helps, of course. I had a great browse and quickly assembled a pile of potential purchases. I was particularly interested in the Lett Lopi, an Icelandic Yarn (funny that – how prophetic!) because, so far as I know, Stephanie is the only shop in Ireland that stocks it. She also stocks a great range of fiber for spinning and felting; so I had a good poke around of those as well.

I wasn’t just there for the yarn, however. I was there for a class: to learn Tunisian Crochet in-the-round from Irene Lundgaard (the fiber-artist formerly known as WonderWanda). What a blast that was! The class, and meeting Irene for the first time, deserves a separate post all of its own. I mention it now by way of noting that The Yarn Room is a great space for a class. In fact, there were two classes taking place at the same time – our class around the large table, and a weaving class seated on a sofa on the other side of the room. I can’t wait to find a reason to get back to The Yarn Room again. Learning how to weave is suddenly attractive – The Yarn Room offers classes in it and it’s the only thing I don’t know how to do… yet!