We've been having a conversation on a mail list about "nesting" and the need to have everything to hand "just in case". Well, today, that need was justified.

I had been scheduled to observe two classes and set off this morning through dreadful traffic to arrive fifteen minutes early for the first one. Almost there and I get a call to say the tutor is ill and the class is cancelled. It really wasn't worth heading home again, since I had the second class to observe this afternoon in the same area, so quick decision re what to do/where to go.

Answer: Symonds Yat.

It was a glorious day, clear and sunny, and the views were magnificent. OK, I wasn't quite dressed for the great outdoors, but so what - I enjoyed some fresh air and spent a happy hour or so there. Of course, the nesting instinct meant that I had knitting, book, ipod, flask of coffee, sandwiches etc. to hand and was perfectly self-sufficient!

Trouble was, the car park was away from the view, a little empty and I felt I was being watched with suspicion by the other couple there. They were surely questioning why this smartly-dressed woman was hanging around the car park?!

So, I headed off through the Forest of Dean to Speech House, and Beechenhurst Forest picnic site, where I ate my lunch, knit a few inches of my alpaca-silk wrap, and listened to a podcast. (Can't bear You and Yours!)

Really quite a blow then, to have to do some work this afternoon when I heard that this particular tutor was working as normal!!

Two more photographs from NYC today, this time taken at a "costume jewellers" on 6th Avenue. Yes, of course I bought some!!