public knitting

As regular readers will know, I do much of my knitting in public, simply because I knit as something to do on the bus to work. That's one of the reasons why I love this photo - from the shoot for exchequered. The traffic lights changed, the bus' engines growled into action, and went passed at just the wrong moment, completely obscuring the scarf.

There was a knit a river meet by the London Eye today. But I had teaching work to catch up on, so at 10 o'clock this morning I was sitting on the 36 bus to college, happily knitting away. We were making good time, and had just gone passed the Oval.

The traffic lights changed, the bus' engines growled into action, it turned into another lane and I spotted a man walking down the street carrying a HUGE blue patchwork blanket on his head. It was a sight anyone would have stared at out of the window of a bus, and it was a good few seconds before I realised I'd seen that blanket before and knew exactly who he was and where he was going.

London is such a huge place things like that don't happen very often. I was tempted to lean out the window and wave my knitting at them to wish them luck. But seeing as I was whizzing around one of the larger roundabouts in town and on the top deck of a bus I figured they'd probably not see me. Even if they did, I'd still look a bit strange. And in someways it was nicer left unsaid - simple silent recognition of fellow knitters.

But it did make me smile. It was a bit like spotting a celebrity, only better.