Stitch n Bitch evening

A lot of gossip last night!
One of the ladies has just come back from a trekking holiday in Katmandu, walking around the Anapurnas. She brought back a paisley shawl made of yak wool for us to admire - so soft and warm!
She also brought skeins of silk yarn, made from recycled silk saris, in gorgeous rich colours. She'd already knitted up a surprisingly sturdy little shoulder bag from it as a Christmas present. She had found the shop where she bought them two years ago, on her last visit, and this time the owner of the shop took her to his stock room, where he had huge sacks f ull of the silk skeins for her to choose from. The saris come from India to two villages up in the hills where the women tear them into narrow strips and then twist them into the yarn.
When she came home, though, that wasn't the end of her adventures. She was getting up one morning when she heard loud noises outside. At first she thought it was some agricultural vehicle going up the lane by the house. Then she went outside to the yard, and saw what had really happened. A ram had got out of a neighbouring farm, and found his way into her yard. He saw his reflection in the glass door of the barn - and charged it! There was glass everywhere, and a big hole in the door.
"Wow! That's never happened before - I charged my enemy, and he exploded!"
Fortunately, the ram wasn't badly injured - judging by the speed at which he departed, anyway, trailing shards of glass that had got caught in his wool. And the glass won't cost too much to replace either.

Joyce had brought something to show us, too. She told the story a few weeks ago - she had been friendly with an old lady, who she often used to visit, and shortly before the lady died, she gave Joyce a parcel wrapped in a plastic bag and said: "I want you to promise me something. When I die, I want you to burn this."
So Joyce promised, and some time later the lady died.
Joyce felt that she couldn't just throw all that plastic on the fire, so she unwrapped the parcel. Inside the plastic bag was a cloth bag, and inside that a second cloth bag, and inside that, wrapped up in cotton, was a teddy bear. She took one look at his little face, and thought "I can't burn you."
So she wrapped him up again, and spent years feeling guilty that she hadn't carried out the old lady's request.
So now she's brought the problem to us. She unwrapped the parcel, just as she had the first time, and we all looked at the teddy's sweet little face, and agreed that she couldn't possibly throw that on the fire.
"Maybe she's hidden something inside it," Tracy suggested. "Jewellery - or an engagement ring?"
"She never married," Joyce said.
So, we were all agreed that Joyce couldn't burn him, and she felt guilty about having him at home, so the best option, we thought, would be to get him valued, sell him and give the money to charity. He's obviously a very old bear. It was that or make him the mascot of our group, because we all fell in love with him.