Gansey Nation

It hardly seems fair, does it, that you slog your way through January, only to wake up one morning to find you’ve still got to negotiate February. It’s like seeing your numbers come up on the national lottery, and realising that you’re looking at last week’s ticket and you forgot to buy a new one. But still, there are sheep in the field at the end of the lane this week, and the Council are using up the roads budget by filling in a few of the worst potholes, two infallible signs that spring must be on its way.

Back in the day, the Romans didn’t bother with months during winter, and you can understand why: it’s all a bit samey, grey, dark, and cold. You might as well call the winter months Grim-months One, Two and Three and be done with it. Still, eventually they cracked and King Numa Pompilius invented February around 713 BC. The month takes its name from the festival of Februa, a time when people were ritually washed, and I still honour this ritual to this day: I take a bath once a year, whether I need one or not. (I think old King Numa probably first made that joke, probably at the same time as announcing he’d created the month.)

Fishing boat next to the Herring Mart

The Anglo-Saxons had their own name for it, Solmōnaþ (Sol-monath). The “sol” element could mean sun, mud or cakes baked in the hearth, all of which are possible: February is notoriously muddy, and the Anglo-Saxons did bake cakes, although the wonders of a Victoria sponge still lay in the distant future (n.b., here’s an idea for a short-lived tv show: The Great Anglo-Saxon Bake-Off, using only ingredients available in 800 AD). Historians usually breezily dismiss the “sun” option, though, because England isn’t known for its sunshine at this time of year, but I’m not so sure. It’s about now that I start to notice the days really getting longer, so maybe they named it that in a spirit of hope, of “Don’t give up now, lads, we’re nearly there”. Incidentally, another Old English name for February was Kale-monath, or “cabbage month”, which our local Indian takeaway sadly seems to have adopted as a default for all its vegetarian options.

Incidentally, one of my favourite John Lennon anecdotes comes from this time of year. The Beatles had just returned on 5th February 1964 from a series of concerts in Paris, and had to face the usual barrage of inane questions from the press. One of the more jaw-dropping related to the University of Detroit adopting a Stamp Out The Beatles movement: “They say your haircuts are un-American”. To which Lennon replied with faultless logic, “Well, it was very observant of them because we aren’t American, actually…”

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TECHNICAL STUFF

Milestone number one: I’ve reached the top of the body ribbing and am now footling about with the border chevron, a sort of amuse-bouche before we start the main course of the yoke pattern. As this gansey is for a lady who is not as tall as I, I’ve had to make some adjustments to the length of the various pattern elements. So I’ve made the body ribbing and chevron a little narrower, and will hopefully still be able to fit in most of the yoke.

Finally, a big thank you to the charming ladies of Killimster Women’s Institute for making Margaret and me so welcome last week when I gave a talk on ganseys and the herring fishing, and for braving the horrible weather—the rain was drumming so hard on the roof at one point I found myself wondering if it was too late to start rounding up animals two by two. My only regret—and this is true of life as a whole, not just last Thursday night—is that I had to leave so many of the amazing cakes they’d prepared untasted…

“Was there ever a winter so cold and so sad/ The river too weary to flood/ The storming wind cut through to my skin/ But she cut through to my blood…” That’s the opening of The Poor Ditching Boy, a song by the great Richard Thompson, an artist who’s probably never going to top the cheerfullest songwriter awards, and (except for the last line, he adds hastily) it’s been playing in my mind on a loop all week. Indeed, the BBC could have given their weather forecasters a holiday and just played the song each night. For winter laid its icy grip on Caithness for a few days, and it came as something of a shock.

Playing in the snow

Snow, ice, sleet, and hail all descended in a sort of wintery bingo jackpot, together with the horsemen of the apocalypse’s little-known nephew, ungritted roads. The first day or so of new snow is always an unexpected treat, when it covers everything and makes everywhere look exciting and new, it’s powdery and scrunches underfoot in a very satisfactory way, and walking sounds like you’re eating perfectly grilled toast, and everyone looks happy, like they’ve stepped out of the last act of The Muppet Christmas Carol. Then it thaws on top, and freezes overnight, and before you know it you’re damning the penguins’ Christmas skating party to blazes as you anxiously navigate the treacherous ice like someone walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls, and watching cars glide sideways down the road.

I imagine one day I’ll forget what it felt like when the tree at the bottom of the garden deposited a wadge of snow down the back of my neck: first there was an icy shock, then a not unpleasant tingling as it melted, then a cold worm of water slithering down my spine; it probably ended up pooling in my socks, though to be honest I rather lost touch with it somewhere around my sixth vertebra. Eventually all the snow and ice melts, of course, and turns to rain, with just a few sad pockets lingering as reminders under north-facing hedges or in the hollows of distant mountains. Still, soon it will be spring, and time to put aside the depressing Richard Thompson songs for something more cheerful. Here’s one: The Beatles singing Here Comes The Sun…

I’ve got a couple of parish notices this week. First of all, the navy blue Wick gansey (named after its original owner, George Bremner) I knit before Christmas in aid of the Caithness Fishermen’s Mission is now being raffled. I’d describe its size as Extra Large (it’s a nice, easy, comfortable fit on me, and I measure about 43 inches round the chest). Tickets are £1 each. If you want to take part, you can buy a ticket by paying us via Paypal. Simply click on the “buy Gordon a cuppa” button on the home page and make your contribution (n.b., please remember to leave a note that it’s for the raffle). We’ll allocate you a ticket number as soon as I get some from Jackie at the Fisherman’s Mission. The raffle will be open till 24 February, so there’s plenty of time. And let me say that I can’t think of a worthier cause for the gansey-appreciating community to support.

Also this week, I’m delighted to say that Penelope has been in touch to share a couple of ganseys she’s knit. Penelope’s been knitting ganseys for some years now, and of the two, one (in Frangipani ocean deep) is a Flamborough design taken from Gladys Thompson, a classic pattern classically realised, and the other (also Frangipani, wine-coloured) is her own design. Many thanks to Penelope for sharing these with us, and many congratulations on two fine-looking ganseys.

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TECHNICAL STUFF

I’m taking my time and working my way slowly up the body. It’s the ribbing that takes the time, of course, and I’ve included the pattern chart so you can see what’s going on; though it all concertinas up as you knit it, and does what ribbing is supposed to do. Once it’s washed and blocked the ribs will open out and reveal themselves. Meanwhile, in the immortal words of Chief Dan George in The Outlaw Josey Wales, I “endeavour to persevere…”