Gansey Nation

We’re having all our windows replaced. It was long overdue—they were very old, some of the frames were rotten, and one was basically held together with a twisty tie and a rolled-up towel laid across the join to keep the wind out. Things had got so bad the Council proposed we change the name of our property to The House of Usher. The final straw was observing a Himalayan vulture the other day perched amid the seagulls on our roof with a hopeful look in its eye. Yes, it was definitely time.

Bedroom windows removed

It’s been a week of disruption all round, with our house currently resembling a set from Saving Private Ryan and the County Show taking place across the way. Overnight the neighbouring fields were transformed into the kind of tented city that Galadriel might have ordered if the elves had won the contract to run the Glastonbury festival. Tall, white pavilions encompassed the field over the road, and the hills were alive with the sounds of a funfair, motorcycle display teams and vintage tractors. Then it rained.

A vintage tractor on display

Well, I say rained, though that doesn’t really convey the apocalyptic immensity. If I open my thesaurus other, more appropriate, nouns suggest themselves: deluge, torrent, downpour, spate, and perhaps even cataclysm. Then in the early morning it stopped and words like mud, sun, heat, mud, steam and more mud become necessary. At times it felt like a recreation of the battle of Waterloo, which had uncannily similar weather—though I’ve never quite recovered from learning that the Allied and French armies, who got into position overnight in the pouring rain, didn’t have any toilet facilities (water-porta-loos?) and just relieved themselves where they stood or lay; and so, when the sources describe the battle taking place in a sea of mud, well, let’s just say it was brown and leave it at that.

Backing into the traces

In gansey news, I have finished the first sleeve and am now embarked on the second. I’ve just finished the underarm gusset and there’s just the rest of the sleeve and cuff to go. It’s not a long sleeve, and I’ll be decreasing at a rate of two stitches every fifth row. I still hope to finish it by the end of July, so fingers crossed.

And as I write this it’s Sunday morning and the tents are coming down surprisingly quickly—every time I look out the window—or the gaping hole where a window used to be—another one’s gone. Soon it will be as if they’d never appeared, and all we’ll be left with is the funfair; though, without wishing to appear in any way negative, honestly I think I’d rather take the vulture…

I was intrigued to discover recently that, under the Salmon Act of 1986, it’s illegal to handle a salmon in suspicious circumstances. Of course, this means you can be arrested for handling potentially stolen goods and not, presumably, using a salmon as a tennis racket or playing it like a banjo. But it did send me looking for other unusual or outdated laws which are still on the statute books.

Did you know that it’s illegal to carry a plank along the pavement in London? I assume this is because the police have seen too many Laurel and Hardy movies. Other unlawful activities include driving cows along the highway without permission and firing a cannon within 300 yards of a dwelling house. And since 1313 members of Parliament have been forbidden to wear armour in the House, which goes some way to explaining why Prime Minister’s Questions has been so dull lately.

There are plenty of myths around outdated laws which turn out not to be true. So, no, you can’t shoot foreigners with a longbow in Chester or Hereford after curfew (nor in all likelihood could you ever); Oliver Cromwell, killjoy though he was, never actually banned eating mince pies at Christmas; and yes, you are permitted to hide a Catholic priest in your house should you so desire (it’s good to have a hobby that involves meeting other people).

Valeriana pyrenaica

Lifting our gaze from the quirks of the law, in parish notices Judit has sent us a picture of another gansey to admire. It’s John Northcott’s pattern from Rae Compton’s book (or “Straight Outta Compton” as controversial rappers NWA called their album celebrating ganseys), simple and elegant, and the light grey heather colour allows the pattern to stand out clearly. It is a gift for a very lucky young man. Many thanks as ever to Judit for sharing her ganseys with us!

Grasses by the river

And harking back to strange laws, of course the UK has never had a monopoly on these. In ancient times it was illegal to die on the island of Delos, which was a holy place to the gods (whaddaya gonna do, shoot me?). My favourite though is Peter the Great’s 1698 beard tax, which he introduced to make Russian men look more modern. The idea was that you either had to shave or buy a “beard token”, which you would show to police on demand: if you couldn’t produce a token, they were allowed to forcibly shave you (presumably saving canny Russians a fortune in barbers’ fees). Unsurprisingly the law proved unenforceable, and was finally repealed by another The Great, Catherine, in 1772. Anyway, so much for the law. Now I have a strange urge to eat a mince pie, handle a salmon and, after counting to 100, go see if I can find a Catholic priest hiding somewhere in my house…

In Twelfth Night, Feste, an experienced weather forecaster, declares that “The rain it raineth every day”. But while this is usually a pretty fair description of Caithness in early summer, right now the ground’s parched. It hasn’t rained for weeks, not that proper, solid, god-fearing presbyterian rain where it just falls all day dripping from the eaves and cascading from the trees in miniature waterfalls. I mean, the ground up here’s supposed to be soft: I’m used to walking across grassy fields in Caithness in squidgy squelches, the water sometimes rising to my ankles. These days I just bounce. It’s as if we’d moved to California and I hadn’t noticed

We went up to Duncansby Stacks, those great triangular sea stacks rising up beside the cliffs like God’s Toblerone. The walk over the headland is usually pretty squishy, as though the grass isn’t anchored to earth but just floats on the water table like plankton. I keep expecting to see people roped together in case someone is sucked under in a Grimpen Mire sort of way. Not this time. The soil was dusty, watercourses you normally have to jump over were all dried up, and the sheep followed us around in hopes of catching stray drops of sweat.

Sea thrift carpeting the shore

TS Eliot probably had us in mind when he wrote, “Here is no water but only rock/ Rock and no water and the sandy road/ The road winding above among the mountains/ Which are mountains of rock without water”. Except for the rock, the sand, and the mountains, and the roads having potholes you could lose a battleship in, it’s an almost exact portrait of Caithness. But surely the dry spell can’t last for ever—this is Scotland, after all—and I see some rain is in the forecast. Till then, as Feste would say, the sun it shineth every day…

A glimmer of light in the shadow

TECHNICAL STUFF

As you will see, I’ve almost finished the front of the body. One shoulder is complete and has been joined to its counterpart at the back. (I find it easier to join the first shoulder as it is completed, rather than put it on a holder until both are ready to be joined.) The other has almost reached the shoulder strap.

The indented neckline is achieved by decreasing every other row on the inside, or neck edge. This indent is over 28 rows, so a decrease every second row means 14 decreases: so, each shoulder needle starts with an extra 14 stitches on it taken from the centre. These 14 stitches are decreased away over 28 rows, so that by the shoulder straps there will be the same number of stitches as the back (if that makes sense) And the centre needles lose 14 + 14 stitches, of course, to compensate. I find this makes a nice, rounded neckline. I usually also knit the first stitch of the decrease row, and then do the decrease on the next two: because that first stitch “disappears” when it is picked up during the foundation row of the collar, you’re left with the nicely delineated angled decrease stitches making a V to either side.

Enjoying the view from the Trinkie