It’s blowing a gale outside as I write. The Met Office has issued a yellow wind warning, and travel disruption is expected. But I am staying close to home. If things had been different, I would have travelled to Northamptonshire to spend the holiday with my brother-in-law. He loved Christmas, putting up the decorations each year, and even though he lived on his own for the last few years, he still made himself a proper Christmas dinner. In contrast, I have not put up any decorations. I usually don’t get swept up in the Christmas-tide until it’s nearly time to put the baubles away. Maybe next year.
I understand the desire to have lights and decorations. They cheer us up at the darkest time of the year, joyfully changing our environs. The little rituals around Christmas – carol services, Christmas parties, having the family over, putting up decorations – also take us away from our ordinary habits. As my mother-in-law used to say, “A change is as good as a rest”. There’s some wisdom in that.
This Christmas, I’ll be going to a friend’s house. We plan to eat party food, drink wine, and watch old movies all day. There will just be the two of us. We will not get dressed up; she plans to spend the day in her jammies, I haven’t decided yet. I am looking forward to it.
Last light of day
This time of year is always busy for musical groups, and the handbell ringers are no exception. In past years I haven’t attended any of their bookings as we’ve usually been away. This year I’ve been to every one. Last Saturday, we rang Christmas carols at two nursing homes. At the first facility, we had a small, quiet audience. At the second, they were launching into carols the moment the title was announced. Wednesday night, there was a joint concert with the brass band. It was a full house, which was excellent considering there was another carol concert elsewhere. On Sunday, we performed with the Caithness Orchestra at another carol concert. And finally there’s another booking at a day centre on Monday morning. We’ll have earned our Christmas break!
The Happy Recipient
For all these events, we’re requested to wear Christmas jumpers. I’ve got one, but it’s super huge and not very warm. It got me to thinking, what about a Christmas Gansey? A gansey that could be worn all year, without looking too Christmassy? Obvious motifs would be trees and stars. Today I thought of another –snowmen made from seed stitch diamonds. I doubt I’ll ever make one, but I might brainstorm some charts.
Reasonable progress has been made on the lace jacket. I’ve started change colours by blending from one shade to the next. The yarn is two strands knit together of a fine laceweight wool from Colourmart. To change colours, one strand is swapped out for one of the next colour – going from colour AA to colour AB – and later A is swapped out for another strand of B, giving colour BB.
A happy Christmas/Hanukah/choose your celebration to you all. I have truly appreciated your support over the past year. I’m having a short break for the holidays and will be back in the new year.
I know of two anniversaries that take place on 16 December. One is well-known – the Boston Tea Party in 1773. One less well-known is the birthday of Beethoven. And thinking about this I wondered, what other notable events occurred on 16 December? Of course, in this day and age we need only log on to the internet to find out, which is precisely what I did. Here are some of my findings:
1965: Jingle Bells was the one of the first songs played in space. Astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra smuggled sleigh bells and a harmonica on board Gemini 6 and played it to mission control. Jingle Bells was first published in 1857 in Boston, MA as One Horse Open Sleigh but the song wasn’t associated with Christmas until decades later.
Drizzle drops on a spiderweb
1775: Jane Austen was born in Hampshire, England. Richard Arkwright receives a patent for a cotton carding machine. He is also credited with developing the modern factory system.
1653: Oliver Cromwell is appointed Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. As we know, the Puritans cancelled Christmas in Britain in 1647. Christmas was outlawed in 1649 in Boston, MA, and the law repealed in 1681. And in Scotland it was banned in 1640 and didn’t become a public holiday until 1958. In all these instances, the ruling was largely ignored.
In 1620, Myles Standish, military leader of the Plymouth Colony, and a group of settlers had a ‘first encounter’ with 30 native Americans. The Mayflower Pilgrims first came ashore at Plymouth on 11 or 21 December (sources vary).
Winter sunset
In 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed from Portugal down the western coast of Africa, rounded the Cape, and after six months arrived at the Eastern Cape of South Africa. He named the area ‘Natal’ (Christmas in Portuguese). When he sailed on, he entered waters previously unknown to Europeans.
And the best for last – if you are in the US, it’s National Chocolate Covered Anything Day. (But isn’t that every day?)
This past week the gansey was taken off its wires, folded, photographed some more, and taken to its recipient. She was speechless. I made it for the wonderful woman at the funeral directors’ who made a trying time less stressful. She said she’s received many gifts over the years – flowers, chocolate, even jewellery – but she’s never received something like this.
Hem detail
In non-gansey news, you can see the crumpled heap of the lace jacket above. All lace looks like this until it’s blocked within an inch of its life. The pattern is an adaptation by Doilyhead of Lyra by Herbert Niebling. I took most of the week to figure out where I was, knitting a few rows then unpicking them multiple times because it didn’t seem right. Finally I took a good long look at the other sleeve, where the stitches are still on a holder, and noted down the stitches. From this I was able to definitively determine which row to start with.
The first card of the season hit the mat a few days ago, heralding the start of Christmas with its mixed blessings of joy, togetherness, stress, and depression (not necessarily in that order). It’s the time of year when the frenzied preparations bolt forward at breakneck speed, to hit the buffers of Christmas Eve with a screeching halt. But that busy-ness makes us appreciate the relative peace that follows, the days when you can open your presents, sleep late, go for long walks. Unless you’ve got a pack of dogs and a busy family, of course. But we need that break in midwinter, when the nights are longest and the days shortest – to pause our normal routines of the old year and reset for the new.
Sunlight reflections
To continue with the tale of my travels. After the sojourn in Edinburgh, the last leg of the journey was the drive home. It was uneventful, starting off sunny but ending cloudy and dark, with two stops along the way. The house is still in one piece, though I haven’t looked carefully at the outside. There was a dripping tap in the bathroom, and one of the stereo components is kaput. The first is repairable, the second, probably not. The car was unloaded, the suitcase hauled upstairs, plants watered while dinner defrosted in the microwave. And then an early night.
When I left Caithness, it was still nearly summer, not quite summer but not yet autumn either. The wheel of the seasons has turned more than a quarter since, and we are now in winter, with bare trees, chill winds, steely skies, muted landscapes. At least the storms that gusted through Britain this past week did not reach us.
Dusk
And finally – drumroll – the gansey is done and looks rather fine. It’s taken far longer than it should, what with one thing or another. But what’s a few weeks when this is the result? The allover patterning makes it a showstopper. The Channel Island cast-on and patterned welt are decorative, but don’t detract from the brocaded body.
The next bit of knitting on the needles is not – gasp – a gansey. A year ago I was about three-quarters along knitting a lace jacket, but put it down because I couldn’t concentrate on it. It has been eyeing me ever since, sitting neglected on the side table, wondering when it will be finished. Now is the time to pick it up again. So far, I’ve finished casting off the hem of the body and have started the i-cord edging up the fronts. It’s knit from the top down, so the sleeves are half done. I hope that by next week some progress will be made on them.
It’s been a year. I have just begun my second year of widowhood. In the grand scheme of things, my concerns are of little import. I have a home, I can to heat it, I can afford to eat, I can afford to go on holiday and run a car. So many around the world, and even in this country, do not have these things.
On the other hand, although I try to keep perspective, one always remembers what one has lost. After a year, the thing I miss most is the companionship. Having someone there to look out for me, and I for them. The simple things like a cup of tea appearing at my elbow while I’m on a Zoom meeting. Sure, I have friends and regular activities, but it’s not the same. But I’ve got through the first year, the hardest year. Another thought that surfaces when I’m about to buy something expensive – “He’d want you to be happy” – and I know this to be true.
Early morning snow
But enough of maudlin sentiment. I’m fine, really truly.
To continue with my travels, I arrived back in the UK in mid November and stayed with friends near Heathrow for a few days to reacclimatise. It was cloudy, cool, and sometimes rainy. Following this, I drove to Northamptonshire, where I stayed for the rest of the week, hoping to get a few things done like a boiler service and broadband installation. Neither occurred. The boiler service was cancelled at a half hour’s notice, on the first snowy day of winter. It was quite a surprise to open the curtains to falling snow! But it didn’t last, and was melted away by the afternoon.
Edinburgh Castle
Following the sojourn in Northamptonshire, I drove to Edinburgh to visit another friend. It was during the end of ‘Storm Bert’, which brought heavy rain, wind, and flooding to the UK. There was a strong tailwind; the car and I made a drunkard’s progress. But there was no chance of weaving around when I hopefully followed the satnav’s recommended detour. Although a saving of 20 minutes was shown, in the end it seemed to add that and more. It directed me through the backroads of rural Cheshire, down rutted and potholed single-track roads that were barely more than farm tracks. The difficulties came when other drivers, coming from the opposite direction, took the same detour. We pulled over so far that we scraped the hedges, with mere inches between the passing vehicles. It did not help that some of the vehicles were large mini-vans or huge SUVs. I made a New Year’s resolution early – Never Take A Satnav Detour Again.
Gloaming on the river, Wick
As you can see, there hasn’t been much progress on the gansey. I had hoped to have it done by now, but it never felt right to knit while I was visiting, unless my host also knit. However, it’s nearly finished now, just a few rows to go. It will be done by next week, when I’ll start swatching for the next.
Well, here we are again. I’ve returned to the cool damp climes of Britain, and apologise for the long break in entries, time slips away quickly when on holiday.
Now where were we . . . Ah yes, Woodstock. After Woodstock, I travelled east to Massachusetts to visit new acquaintances. We drove around central Massachusetts searching for elusive autumn colour one day. The colour wasn’t spectacular this year, but even without flaming red maples, there were muted tones of yellow, gold, and maroon. Another day, we went to the local spinning group, where we knit while the rest span on everything from drop spindles to tiny portable electric wheels.
View from Poet’s Tower, Greenfield, MA
The visit after this was to two friends in Connecticut, both of whom I met through another hobby, bamboo pipes. We took advantage of the sunny weather and picked apples at a nearby orchard. On another day, we played Christmas music on our pipes with one friend’s small, dedicated group of pipers. Over the dinner table, there were long, stimulating conversations. And if we weren’t doing piping or chatting, I was showing my friend how to use her first smartphone.
Apple picking in Connecticut
From central Connecticut, I travelled north into Vermont to visit another friend. We knitted and chatted as we watched old movies. Given that it was election season, we watched the movie ‘Dave’ one evening. The next evening, we watched two classic Frank Capra movies from the 1930s – ‘You Can’t Take It With You’ and ‘It Happened One Night’. It was a quiet visit; as well as knitting, I spent copious amounts of time working on an overdue newsletter. We went on an outing was to visit the longest covered bridge in Vermont. We drove over and back, then strolled down to the riverside to have a look. We also had a drive-by look at Rudyard Kipling’s house, Nilaqua.
Covered bridge, Vermont
The final visit was to long-time friend in western Massachusetts. She had just returned from a month-long trip to Norway, cruising the Arctic Circle on an artists’ residency. Highlights included seeing walruses and glaciers but alas no polar bears. During my visit, we drove to various viewpoints to see the scenery – there’s a lot of it about in western Massachusetts – and hiked up one hill to the viewing tower at the top. We also took in fabric and yarn shops, and one store that sold all things maple. One evening, we attended the local light opera company’s production of The Mikado, with a twist – it was set in Scotland, and re-titled ‘The McAdo’.
South Cape Beach, Cape Cod
Finally, the last stop was in Cape Cod for a few days before getting the bus to the airport. The flight was slightly bumpy but uneventful. I had hoped to get lots of knitting done, but because it was a night flight the cabin lights were dimmed too much to knit.
I have made erratic but steady progress on the gansey. The first sleeve is finished, and I’ve just started the cuff on the second sleeve. The first sleeve doesn’t exactly match the first. There was a miscount of stitches on the first sleeve, and I tried to match that number on the second. This means that the decreases have variable numbers of rows between them. But once it’s blocked, I am hoping it won’t be obvious.
It’s blowing a gale outside as I write. The Met Office has issued a yellow wind warning, and travel disruption is expected. But I am staying close to home. If things had been different, I would have travelled to Northamptonshire to spend the holiday with my brother-in-law. He loved Christmas, putting up the decorations each year, and even though he lived on his own for the last few years, he still made himself a proper Christmas dinner. In contrast, I have not put up any decorations. I usually don’t get swept up in the Christmas-tide until it’s nearly time to put the baubles away. Maybe next year. 
I understand the desire to have lights and decorations. They cheer us up at the darkest time of the year, joyfully changing our environs. The little rituals around Christmas – carol services, Christmas parties, having the family over, putting up decorations – also take us away from our ordinary habits. As my mother-in-law used to say, “A change is as good as a rest”. There’s some wisdom in that.
Reasonable progress has been made on the lace jacket. I’ve started change colours by blending from one shade to the next. The yarn is two strands knit together of a fine laceweight wool from Colourmart. To change colours, one strand is swapped out for one of the next colour – going from colour AA to colour AB – and later A is swapped out for another strand of B, giving colour BB.
