We Don't Know How Lucky We Are!

Stitch and Bitch last night was our first try at a demonstration evening - and it went rather well. I arrived too late to try knitting with 4 needles, but successfully mastered circular needles, which I had previously been rather wary of.
Tracy came to the Swan more or less straight from her last day at the Castle. To celebrate her leaving, she had afternoon tea with Richard (she made the cake), and he gave her a book she wanted on dyeing and batik, and flowers. She's about to try out a new career designing knitting patterns. Big companies produce knitting patterns that are designed to be used with only their own wool. Small wool producers don't have the resources to do that, so Tracy will hopefully be filling a gap in the market.
Sara was just back from seeing her new boyfriend, who was once her boyfriend when they were both sixteen, and who still lives in the town where she grew up. She found it much changed. In the local shopping areas, satellites to the main town centre, all the Post Offices have closed down, so everyone has to go into the centre if they want to buy a stamp. The smaller schools have closed down - or estates have been built with no school provision - so the children have to be bussed miles to huge schools. One of Sara's old friends said that she would be happy if her sons came out of school without a criminal record or a drug habit - qualifications would be a bonus, of course. The gardens by the river that runs through the middle of town are strewn with rubbish, and the river itself has silted up. Sara offered to buy cakes for her friends one afternoon - and found that there are no baker's shops anywhere in the town. She eventually found some jammy doughnuts in the local Mini Tesco - but what she found really disturbing was the security guard on the door. Even more disturbing, her friends thought that having a security guard on duty was normal.
She was very glad to get back to Hay, which has a primary school, and a Post Office, and bakery, and a river without rubbish strewn about - and no security guards in the shops.