A long post about nothing

A few weeks ago we went to a little town called Berry for another of the Sunday Drives. Also known as South Mosman (hehehe), it caters to the well-heeled Sydney daytripper by offering quality coffee, eclectic furniture and homewares stores, a great sourdough bakery, a pub pretending to be country style (real country style pubs are derelict, ugly and unwelcoming) and some great looking restaurants.

As my kids went at it Pro Hart style at the table outside the Great Australian Ice Creamery, I dreamily switched off and designed my luxury yarn shop, nestled in nicely between the embroidery shop and the gourmet butcher.

It is longer than it is wide and has timber floors with suede cubes, tub chairs, low coffee tables and a few 2 seater sofas grouped down the middle - colour scheme predominantly chocolate with accents of lime and raspberry. The lighting is crystal chandeliers. There are two computers with online access (free of course, we only charge for printing). The yarn shelves down the sides are not too high. The yarn is grouped by colour then weight, like a rainbow round the room. There are plenty of sample garments hanging above the shelves, and are easily accessible by the staff.

All the patterns are up the back, laminated shop copies are ORGANISED by garment. Browsing for hours is fine with me, knock yourself out. Vintage or retro-styled patterns are kept separately.

I think there has to be a bit of fabric as well in there somewhere, what if you need to line a bag?

Yarn, if you want it I've either got it or can get it for you.

There is a motto on the wall - something like 'handmade things give you special powers. Your grandmother has always known this.' (totally paraphrased and evilly lifted from the

whip up blog

who lifted it from elsewhere but acknowledged the sources)

We do coffee and cakes, a few savouries and a bit of salad but no cooking. There are classes, knitgroups and spinning groups, and I encourage just hanging around.

There is an upstairs lounge area for group get-togethers. Yes I'll bring the coffee up there for you too.

There is a shop dog. Old English Sheepdog. Her name is Bless.

Don't come Monday, I'm not open. Don't come before 10:00am, there's a staff meeting. But we do open into the evening.

And so there I was daydreaming away, until I was rudely brought back to reality by a sticky hand tugging at my sleeve. 'Can we have a ride on the horse and cart mum?'

It was such a lovely day I had to go back again the next week. This time I took the stripey tiger, and no kids. We had a wander inside the antique shops (something you can't really do with the children) and the clothes shops, we really inspected the wares at the quilting shop and the gorgeous embroidery/sewing shop. We even had a relaxed lunch, where we were so pleased with ourselves we discussed how great it would be to podcast our lunch conversations. We could call it Three ladies lunching - Donni was there in spirit.

I really love Berry.