Interlude 1: Week 6 – 20 January

It’s been another quiet week, both at home and with the weather.  It’s been like spring verging on summer this past week – not much wind and temperatures in the low teens C or low 50°s F.  I’ve been out as much as I can, but at the moment can’t drive anywhere.  The car has been out of action since Christmas.  Not for anything serious – the inspection sticker expired just after Christmas, and the car won’t pass its MOT until a tiny part – the nozzle for screen wash – is replaced.  And because it doesn’t have a valid inspection sticker, the annual road tax can’t be paid, and without the road tax, it’s illegal to drive.  It felt quite daring to drive half a mile to the supermarket, hoping I wouldn’t be stopped. I phoned the garage on Friday, the part has arrived, and the car will be on the road again on Wednesday.

Late Afternoon by the river

All this recalls the saying, ‘for want of a nail, the kingdom was lost’.  It’s a saying with a long history, because of course I looked it up.  Earliest forms date back to the 13^thC, the current form goes something like this:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

It’s all an instance of one thing leads to another.  At least, I haven’t lost my kingdom. 

Flat Calm

As it’s been an uneventful week, there’s not much to write about.  Things are ticking along with Gordon’s brother’s estate, with brief flurries of activity now and then.  I did get one important thing done, however – a knitting pattern we were asked to write about 18 months ago.  Writing the first one, for The Knitter magazine, and been hard work, and I’ve been putting it off, pushing it forward into the future, at every opportunity.  But this past week a reminder e-mail arrived, and spurred me to get it done.  Much to my amazement, it came together quickly.  I reused The Knitter pattern as a template, thus only needing to plug in relevant numbers and variations to the directions.   The only thing left to do is to finish editing the charts.  It’s destined for a book, I’ll let you know when it’s published.

As you can see from the photo of the lace jacket, I’ve come to the end of the related colours and have had to substitute a dark purple yarn.  It sticks out like a sore thumb but vaguely coordinates with the other colours.  I’m taking a ‘fix it feature it’ point of view – turn what seems to be a flaw into something positive.

Sunset