Ah, Kentucky. If you’ve ever spent a week with three greyhounds and two cats, you’ll have an inkling of the enjoyable time I had in the bluegrass state. The greyhounds would greet me each morning as I came down the stairs, grinning, barking, bouncing with excitement. And greyhounds do grin – it’s a quick baring of the teeth that is unnerving at first, but it only means they’re happy to see you. And, like many dogs, they’re mischievous scamps as well. Being so tall, they can lay their chins on the table, and equally they can reach about anything that’s left on the counter. I was reminded of the episode of The Simpsons where the family acquires a litter of greyhound puppies. Homer sits on the sofa trying to eat a bag of crisps, and each time he gets one to his mouth, a puppy leaps up and snatches it away. The cats, of course, were more circumspect. One, a heavyweight of the cat world, would simply lean on me as I sat on the bed, and I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.
Oyster farm, Sandwich, MA
After a relaxing week in Kentucky, I travelled to my home state of Massachusetts, flying south to Charlotte, North Carolina and then to Boston’s Logan Airport. I made the mistake of misjudging the size of Charlotte airport from the schematic on their website. The terminus is massive. The inbound flight landed at one end and the onward flight left from the other. A sign at the gate indicated it would take 24 minutes to walk the distance. I made it in about 20, dodging amongst the crowds of people sauntering alongside the inoperative moving walkways. The terminal is undergoing renovation, which made it seem even busier.
Halloween decorations near Woodstock
I was fortunate to have a window seat, and spent part of the journey trying to figure out where we were. When we flew over the Chesapeake, I had a pretty good idea. Soon thereafter, we flew over New York City, distinctive with its tall buildings and the green rectangle of Central Park. Then across Connecticut and Massachusetts, where I could see Boston harbour in the far distance, before the plane changed course. As the plane started to descend, I could also see that the trees were turning the oranges, yellows, and golds of autumn.
‘Olana’, home of artist Frederic Edwin Church
A few days later, I set off for Woodstock, New York to visit an old friend who had recently moved there from Cape Cod. Woodstock has long been known for its artists’ colonies, but most people associate it nowadays with the music festival of 1969, which actually took place 60 miles away in Bethel, NY. Today’s Woodstock retains a quaint air, with lots of funky little shops and a hippy vibe.
View of the Quabbin Reservoir, Massachusetts
As you can see, reasonable progress has been made on the sleeve. The measurements I have for the sleeve seem far too long, so I’m hedging my bets and making it shorter with Gordon’s standard six-inch cuff. I fully accept that if the sleeves are too short, I’ll need to undo the ribbing and lengthen them.
This past week has been less fraught and adventuresome. The week in Northamptonshire was spent indoors, apart from shutting the front gate one day and putting out the bin another. Even though the weather was beautiful at times – warm, white fluffy clouds, sunshine – the Covid sucked all spare energy.
By Sunday, still testing positive for Covid, it was obvious that the bamboo pipe course would be expunged from the calendar. The next planned activity was a visit to friends in Maidenhead, prior to flying out of Heathrow. They were still happy to welcome me, despite still testing positive. The next day, Monday, I scurried around the house, gathering things together, packing, unpacking, repacking, deciding to leave things behind, changing my mind, changing it again, and finally making decisions that would leave my suitcase only marginally lighter. I am sure I’ll be sick of the sight of all my clothing by the end of the trip, if I haven’t ‘outgrown’ them.
Herrington Lake, KY
The few days in Maidenhead were restful and sociable. I met up with another friend who had been to the pipe course. We had planned months ago to travel to the States together, where I would visit her in Kentucky. I’ve never been to ol’ Kentucky and welcomed the chance to see somewhere new. We didn’t do Maidenhead justice; the weather was too showery and cool to spend time wandering. And besides, she was exhausted after the course and I was recovering from Covid.
Ice houses, Henry Clay Estate
We arrived in Kentucky in early evening, after a long day’s travel. Marvel of marvels, there was a cloudless sky with an unfamiliar white orb. After a short drive, I met the rest of the ‘family’ – three excited, friendly greyhounds and two laid-back cats. The greyhounds are my new best friends, and one of the cats has decided the guest bed is the best place to be.
Osage Oranges
The night before heading to Maidenhead, I grasped the gansey nettle and unravelled the sleeve to a few rows above the pick-up row. There was no point making the agony worse by having to pick up the stitches again. The plan was to decrease on the first pattern row. How had I got into this hole in the first place? Simply put, I had ignored my calculations and instead picked up a reasonable three stitches every four rows. This yielded 144 stitches instead of the calculated 128 (not including the gusset stitches). It’s not an enormous difference, and I should have known better. They say you learn by experience, but sometimes one wonders . . .
The steps to the lake
As you can see in the photo, due to lots more of time spent on a plane, I have been able to catch up and overtake the point where the sleeve was frogged. Nearly the entire transatlantic flight was spent knitting, and more was accomplished during a three-hour layover before the next flight. And then I put it down as I had had enough!
This week’s blog nearly writes itself. It’s been a trip full of adventures, and I’ve only been away a week.
Within five minutes of leaving home, I’d scraped the side of the car. I stopped at the nearest pillar box to post a letter. The side road narrows at one point, and I’d odged over to let another car past. Crunch crumple! I’d scraped the car against the front corner of a parked one. The damage isn’t too bad, and the other car looked to have only superficial damage, but you never can tell. Being honest, I asked some folk loading their car if they knew who the owner was. They pointed out a nearby house, I rang the bell and apologised profusely. We exchanged details, and, talking sternly to myself, I set off again and vowed to pay more attention.
Seat with a view
After an overnight stop in Edinburgh, I continued to Northamptonshire to stay a few days at the family manse. On arriving, I noticed that some lights on timers were not on. Perhaps there had been a power cut, I thought. When I got into the house, the overhead lights worked, but anything plugged into a socket did not. While searching for the fuse box, I noticed that the timer for the heating and hot water was also not working. Eventually I found the fuse box, and by switching them on and off one by one, I found the switch for the residual current device. The sockets and controller were now working.
Next, the bathroom floor was littered with dead flies, with dozens of live ones on the window. It is that time of year in the countryside when flies come in to hibernate. They buzz sluggishly then try to hide in the windows’ crevices. It reminded me of a little poem of my dad’s, who trained as an electrical engineer:
Alternating current pie First a currant, then a fly Underneath the crust they lie, Alternating current pie.
Later, car unloaded, timers reset and dinner consumed, I remembered there was a huge chest freezer in the basement. Rivulets of water trickled off as I opened the lid. It had completely defrosted. Thankfully, nothing had obviously started to rot. Fortunately, the freezer had already been partly cleared. The most sensible course was to refreeze it and empty it another time.
Finally, on Monday I developed flu-like symptoms. I was due to go to a bamboo pipe course in the south of England a few days later. As a precautionary measure, I took a Covid test and, yes, you’ve guessed it, it came up positive. I contacted the organiser, and we agreed that I should not attend until I had a negative test. Although disappointed not to see my friends, I fully understand.
Saturday Fishermen by the canal
Because of the travel and then illness, I have not even looked at the gansey for the past week. When I packed it, the sleeve was giving me some concerns. It looked quite baggy. Since then, I have compared it to another gansey; the sleeve is too big, and needs redoing. I would rather reknit than have balloon sleeves. And because of fewer stitches, it’ll be quicker to knit the second time. Look for the silver lining.
The weather went on holiday last week. It packed its bags and went off to sunnier climes, taking any shreds of warmth with it. Temperatures plummeted – some areas of Scotland had frost – and some considered taking out their winter clothes and others did. I considered donning an autumn jacket, but in the end was glad I hadn’t. The next day, the weather returned from its short break, bringing back a trunkful of warmth as a souvenir. For two days, the skies were cloudless, the breeze was light, and those who’d unpacked their winter clothes wondered what they had been thinking about.
The next day, the souvenirs distributed, the brief bloom of heat vanished, leaving a blanket of dull, white cloud and a chilly wind off the sea. It was wonderful while it lasted, our Indian summer.
Umbellifer seedheads
And where does ‘Indian summer’ originate? I turned to Wikipedia, that source of all knowledge both reliable and unreliable. As it happens, no one knows the definitive origin of the phrase. It first appears in late 18th C US and might possibly refer to hunting season for first nation peoples. Early usage implied warm, hazy, still days after the first frost. Although known in the UK from 1837, it didn’t enter common usage here until the 1950s.
But apart from not knowing what to wear from day to day, it’s been a quiet week. There was an amusing phone call from a company doing a survey of the plot of land opposite the family home, which is next to the canal. This survey is part of government project to move water from the north of England to the south via the canal network. The call was to get the lay of the land – was there livestock, locked gates, crops, any bodies of water they should know about? “Um, the Grand Union Canal?”, I said. The lass I spoke to laughed; it did seem an absurd question.
Watercolour Trees
Yesterday, I spent several hours scanning estate-related papers in preparation for going on holiday, then combining them into appropriate PDFs. Yes, I’m going on holiday again, though it does seem I’m barely at home now. And it will be a long holiday. One of the earliest thoughts I had on becoming widowed was that I could visit the US in the autumn, and could stay as long as I pleased. I could have done this before, but leaving Gordon behind to cope on his own for weeks didn’t seem fair. He was eminently capable of coping, of course, and I knew he would occupy himself with work, listening to music and audiobooks, and knitting.
There has been good progress on the gansey. The shoulders are completed and joined. You can see in the photo what the shoulder might look like when worn. It’s not ideal, but doesn’t look too bad. The gusset on the first sleeve is nearly finished. I’ll probably keep the pattern going to the bottom of the sleeve; with a fully patterned body, a partly plain sleeve might look odd.
Well, here I am again, after another trip to the wilds of Northamptonshire. I’d like to say it was an uneventful trip, but it wasn’t. Events started to unfold during my drive, when I read a text from the friend I’d stay with in Edinburgh. The key was available from a neighbour over the road, she said. Another text from her daughter shed some light: her father had difficulties breathing and had been taken to A&E. Everything was in readiness for my visit, please rootle through the fridge and cupboards as required. After I arrived, another text to say it was probably a chest infection.
Evening on the Canal
My friend returned in the evening, and we chatted until I was starting to nod off. The hospital phoned later, and it didn’t sound good. I retired but didn’t sleep well, waking early. I occupied myself until a reasonable hour and went downstairs to find my friend sitting in the lounge. Her husband had died overnight. She’d taken a taxi to the hospital, but unfortunately didn’t get there in time.
It was fortunate I was there; her daughter had taken the grandson home and would return the following day. As happens in these situations, you’re in shock, operating on autopilot. So many thoughts tumble around, so many things to do. I’d planned to travel on, but offered to stay until her daughter returned. She said, no, after being awake most of the night, she would sleep, and inform people later. I continued my drive, and she confirmed that I could stop there on my return trip.
The next event was the next day, when the ‘Fine Arts Valuer’ arrived to survey the contents of the family home. I gave him a brief orientation tour. During this, he explained that valuations need to be in line with the market value – not undervalued, as the tax office doesn’t like that – and gave the extreme example of a three bed house in London whose contents were valued at £120! It wouldn’t take him very long, he said. I said I’d come look for him in the afternoon.
Four hours later, he’d finished. Usually his dictated notes are about 30 minutes long, but in this instance, it had been fifty. We had a chat, and I learned a few things. That chest in the corner of the dining room – it’s 18th C, with a shelf for candles – you’d only get about £50 for that. The Chinese carved chest in a bedroom – mass produced, not worth much. G-plan coffee table – now that’s worth a bob or two.
Blackberries are red when they’re green.
The gansey, of course, was not valued. The back is complete, the front is nearly finished, with just a few rows to finish the second shoulder. When the first shoulder was complete, I put the back and front together and found much to my chagrin that the pattern wasn’t going to work. I hoped for a fishbone effect along the shoulder, but it’s going to be a diagonal line. I thought of reversing the direction of the last half-fishbone on the back, but decided it would look odd against the regularity of the other fishbones. I am hoping that it won’t be blatantly obvious.
