Gansey Nation

We had our Covid booster jags the other day. It was down at the Assembly Rooms, and ran like a military operation—unsurprisingly, as several army medics were taking part (dressed in desert camouflage, which I can’t help feeling isn’t going to help them much if a foreign power decides to invade the far north of Scotland—a country not, to my knowledge, noted for its hot, sandy terrain). As I stood in line to get in some people happened past across the street, and a lady ahead of me in the queue, who obviously knew them, shouted out a greeting and asked if they’d had their jags already. They said that was the case and, clearly uncomfortable to be accosted in so public a manner, started to move on. Whereupon she called after them (to much hilarity), “Aye, rank has its privileges, right enough!”

Late afternoon on the path

Inside the hall I was met by a nurse with an iPad and a list of questions. I was rather nonplussed to be asked, “And what can we do for you today?”, but it turned out they were offering a flu jab as well the booster, presumably on the ‘buy one get one free’ principle. Well, in for a penny, I thought, and was directed to a table where another nurse was waiting. I duly got the flu shot in one arm, the Covid one in another, and then I was directed to the seating area to wait fifteen minutes before I could leave. Here I was amused to observe that most people after about five minutes realised that (a) just sitting around in case bad things happened is very boring, and (b) no one was actually watching, and so they furtively snuck out whenever the nurses were otherwise engaged. I shook my head at their folly… until I too got bored after five minutes and sheepishly followed them outside.

Lichen & Haws

Meanwhile, the back of the denim gansey is finished, and I’m onto the front. It’s zipping right along, and obviously the secret of fast knitting is to aim for the more svelte type of figure. It’s going to be a seven-and-three-quarter-inch armhole, though these things are always something of a lottery. And what a great colour denim is: it’s no wonder so many people choose it. Next week I should have the front finished, hopefully even the collar.

The Lighthouse, reflected

Speaking of svelte figures (or not), as I’d stripped for action back in the hall the nurse had cheerfully regaled me with anecdotes of the various men who’d passed through her hands earlier that day—specifically, how long they could hold their breath and their dignity and keep their waists sucked in until gravity inevitably reasserted itself. This turned out on average to be for the duration of one jab but not both (“like a bouncy castle deflating” was how she described one poor chap who’d had to let it all hang out). No man is a hero to his valet, as the saying goes; neither apparently is he to his nurse…

In many ways, Caithness seems perfectly suited to this impatient modern age of instant gratification. Take autumn, for example. In other places it announces itself with a suggestion of coolness in the air, a hint of russet in the trees and hedgerows, and about as many fallen leaves as, if they were hair clippings, would maybe oblige a lazy hairdresser to get out the broom. It’s a gradual process of weeks and months, a gentle transition between states. Not so in Caithness: here we get it over pretty much in a weekend, and then it’s straight on to winter, no messing. Such few trees as we have—which skulk about the landscape with a hangdog air, as though they’re runaways from Fangorn Forest and expect the Ents to come along any moment and round them up—seem to have evolved quick-release mechanisms, and at the first suggestion of an autumn breeze drop all their leaves with the unseemly haste of robbers dumping a bag of swag down an open manhole to escape the law.

Autumn has arrived in Caithness wet and cold and very, very windy (as I write this the wind is gusting to 65mph). Looking from my window—for I am not so foolish as to venture outdoors—the trees by the riverside are reduced to bare skeletons, their branches shivering with cold, their leaves already somewhere over the North Sea. The fields are waterlogged quagmires, the roads treacherous with standing water. And the sun, when it shines through the kaleidoscope of clouds that streak across the sky, already seems more distant, dimmer and cooler. No wonder our pagan ancestors indulged in human sacrifice this time of year, especially when there’s so little on tv worth watching.

Flying to the evening’s roost

But enough of darkness! Let us turn to the light instead, where Judit continues to be an inspiration with another splendid gansey. This one is a Filey pattern in lavender, alternating filled and moss stitch diamonds with double moss stitch patterns. The lavender yarn shows the pattern really well and as ever when I see one of Judit’s ganseys I add another pattern to my mental to-do list. Judit tells me it’s going to be a Christmas present, so someone is going to be very lucky this Yule. As ever, many congratulations to Judit, and many thanks for sharing it with us.

Stormy waves

My own gansey project creeps in this petty pace from day to day, as that famous gansey knitter Macbeth once observed. Without trying particularly hard, I’m almost halfway up the body (it helps enormously knitting for people who aren’t very tall). In another inch or so I’ll start the yoke pattern, the charts of which I’ll post next time.

Meanwhile the wind rampages unchecked, and we cower indoors like the Geats in Beowulf huddled in the mead-hall while Grendel prowls malevolently without. Ted Hughes wrote a great poem called Wind which captures the mood perfectly; it has one of the best first lines in English poetry, “This house has been far out at sea all night”, and after last night I know just what he means. And as the wind passes, so does autumn; I fear we might be in for a long winter…