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 I’m back in Scotland now, after a week in foreign climes – half in the south of France sandwiched with days in Edinburgh. The weather was . . . disappointingly much like home. Arrival day in France was hot, but the intervening week was generally cloudy, cool, and breezy. Expecting tropical temperatures, I’d packed for warmer temperatures. Layering up as much as possible, I longed for ‘Caithness summer’ clothing.
 View from my bedroom window The ’art retreat’ I attended was conducted at a relaxed pace. With three leaders, each instructing in separate techniques, we explored three disciplines: polymer clay, embroidery, and sketching. There were two sessions of polymer clay, learning simple techniques and using them for jewellery. For embroidery, the instructor gave us kits for hand-sewn needle books, complete with needles and tiny scissors to put in them. With sketching, we explored ways to make a blank page less daunting by tearing holes in vintage printed paper which were then glued to a backing sheet. The holes were used as frames for small sketches of the village.
 Rue des Martineurs In the past, the village was known for copper vessels, with half a dozen copper beating mills in the valley of the river Sor. The copper was made into vessels in the village’s workshops. Now, the focus has shifted to art & craft, and the village has rebranded itself as an ‘artisanal village’. For the art, a street artist was commissioned to paint a forest scene on a building next to the square. Further commissions extended the artworks to other walls, and then residents could have their garage doors muralled. These have made the village a much more colourful place.
 Inside the Market Hall Part of our time was spent in the airy attic studio and part on excursions. On the Saturday morning, we went to the nearby market in Revel. The large market square, with a 14th C market hall, is encompassed by arcades with shops and cafes. The market radiates into the surrounding streets, with food in the square, and household goods and clothing in the outlying stalls.
 A Lane in Albi The gansey came with me on the trip. I didn’t knit as much as hoped, but there is reasonable progress. The split welt and a few inches of the body are done. To avoid interminable inches of garter stitch on the welt, I chose a broken rib pattern which is too ‘ribby’. A stern blocking should make it behave. The pattern for the body is from one of the Johnston photos. Sometimes I think of it as “Calm Seas and Prosperous Voyage” (rippling seas and lots of herring), or more prosaically as “Thos McKay”, which is the name on the glass plate negative.
In parish notices, Sigrid has sent photos of a delicate pink gansey cardigan with a shawl collar. Well done to her.
Next week, I’ll be on the road again. This time I’m travelling down to Northampton, for my brother-in-law’s funeral. I’ll do my best to get a blog out, but I know you’ll understand if I don’t.
 Ah, sleep. Something which everyone should have more of, according to researchers. Including me, these past few months. Inevitably, just when sleep patterns sauntered towards a new normal, another hand grenade was lobbed into the rippling pool of tranquillity. By last Monday, I’d had enough of depression topped with new anxiety and aided by poor sleep. I made two appointments, one with the doctor, and one with the mental health team.
 Summer Grasses The doctor prescribed some meds, which were started on Friday night. It had an almost immediate effect in terms of sedative properties; I was falling-down sleepy. Drowsiness continued through most of the following day, but the second day was far better. The effects should even out over time; the important thing is I’ve had two nights of better sleep.
The mental health team did two quizzes. The results were that ‘therapeutic intervention’ wasn’t necessary, and it’s ‘situational anxiety’, which will ease over time. As we ended the appointment, something the counsellor said was a mini-lightbulb moment: “It’s out of your control”. A simple, short phrase that made me realise that yes indeed, it is out of my control. I knew it, of course, but having someone else say it was the last blow of the hammer on the nail of realisation, and brought it home. I’ve been much better since.
 Laburnum Regarding my brother-in-law, we’re not much further forward than we were 10 days ago. The cousins have been able to access the house, because I found details of a key safe in old e-mails. The police have finally told us that the items taken for safekeeping can be collected; if they’d initially told us this, it would have reduced anxiety and phone calls. On their visit to the house, the cousins found the house it in good order, something we are extremely glad about. Perishable food has been disposed and the rubbish put out. The next-door farmers are keeping an eye on the place too, quizzing anyone unknown. But we still await news from the Coroner. Without that, we can’t move forward. Still in limbo.
 Koi in lichen The new gansey has been started; the necessary measurements came Thursday. The recipient, a lovely lady from the funeral directors who helped turn arranging a service from a pig’s ear into a silk purse experience, has requested a split welt. I’m using the Channel Island cast-on; its picot edge will give the gansey a more feminine air. I haven’t conclusively decided on the pattern, and have two from the Johnston Collection in mind. One is a full body pattern. The other has bands of patterning, but only glimpses of the pattern appear in the photo because the gansey is under a waistcoat. Enough to see what the pattern is, but not enough to see if the pattern continues to the hem.
I’m off on holiday for a fortnight, one that was planned in the balmy days of autumn. I hope to do some brief blogs while I’m away, but you’ll understand if I don’t manage it.
 The first half of last week went well. The weather wasn’t great – it’s been truly awful lately – but life was approaching normalcy. Ordering things online, finishing a sewing project, going on walks, volunteering at the museum where we greeted cold visitors and parties of schoolchildren. A copy of the Scottish Journal of Yarn was collected from the post office; it contains an article on ganseys, with a tribute to Gordon.
Alas, I haven’t read it carefully, as I’ve been overtaken by events. The next day, after a morning shift at the museum, I was sitting in the lounge knitting and listening to an audiobook. I’d just finished a stone-cold cup of tea and was about to do other things.
Wind on the Marsh The doorbell rang. It shouldn’t be the postie; I hadn’t ordered anything. When the door was opened, two 7’ policemen stood outside. “Do you know Colin Reid?”, one asked (Gordon’s older brother). When policemen ask you that, you know it’s bad. They came in, and quickly trying to clear a sofa, they said they preferred to stand whilst I sat. What could I say but, “Colin’s died, hasn’t he?”. What a shock, completely unexpected. I thought he’d live as long as his parents, who both died at 90.
 Waiting Colin, being a punctual soul, had missed the previous evening’s meeting of the motor club. He was a very active member, being their membership secretary and organising classic car drives. They were understandably concerned, but would check on him the next day, when one of the members had arranged to look at one of Colin’s cars. When he arrived at the house, and Colin didn’t appear, he phoned another member, who came to the house. Then they phoned the police, who found Colin when they entered the property.
 Grasses and Buttercups The police couldn’t find a record of next of kin, but they did find an address book in the house. Mine was the first name they found with the same surname. Consequently, Police Scotland were sent, who performed their duties admirably. They said they had a duty of care, and could not have been more helpful, even offering cups of tea. They even notified the neighbours, when I said I’d visit after making some phone calls. My lovely neighbours poured me a wee dram of brandy, and we raised our glasses to Colin.
 Colin at his Dad’s funeral reception Today, his nearby cousins and I have more information. The Coroner has been contacted regarding next of kin. There will be a postmortem; the results will arrive within a week. The death was not deemed suspicious, so hopefully it will be straightforward. Until then we wait. But the sun is mostly out and it’s nearly warm, and stress levels have dropped.
The next Gansey. As you can see, the next gansey hasn’t been started yet, but this is due not to recent events, but to lack of organisation. The recipient has chosen the colour – Frangipani Sea Spray – and pattern charting is in progress. The measurements should be dropped off soon, when I can start calculations. And the blog is late this week due to internet failure.
Just a very brief note to say the blog will be late this week due to circumstances beyond my control. The Internet connection is up and down like a yo-yo, more off than on. it should be sorted in a couple of days.
See you all then.

 Medieval manuscripts. Those two words conjure images of cold, drafty monasteries, fantastical illuminations, monks slipping chilled hands up sleeves to warm them, tonsures bent over writing desks. Countless words written by anonymous hands. So anonymous that it is impossible to determine the gender of a scribe from their handwriting. But nunneries and convents needed and used manuscripts, and likely produced them for other establishments as well. A rare few manuscripts contain the names of scribes, unobtrusively written in the margins or coded in small letters above the text, but there is also physical evidence in skeletons.
 Red Campion A female skeleton dated to c1000-1200 AD was excavated in Germany during building renovations, and in 2011 researchers analysed her teeth hoping to find evidence of diet. What they found in the mineralised dental plaque was quite a surprise. There were tiny blue particles, which upon further investigation were found to be grains of lapis lazuli. This rare and expensive mineral, originating in Afghanistan, was ground to a powder to make the pigment ultramarine, and was particularly favoured for painting the robes of the Virgin Mary. During the Renaissance, the cost and quality of ultramarine was often specified in artists’ contracts. The current theory is that this anonymous woman was an illustrator of manuscripts, and the mineral was deposited on her teeth when she licked her brush to draw it into a point.
 Back Garden Orchid In a way, knitting is much the same, in that you can’t tell the gender of the knitter from the finished article. Men were skilled knitters in the past, but did they knit ganseys? Nowadays, it is always assumed that women knit the ganseys. But many were machine knit, something that isn’t mentioned often.
The gansey just completed is of course completely hand knit. It’s been a gansey on training wheels; I haven’t knit a gansey on my own for about 30 years. During that time, of course, Gordon perfected his own gansey knitting. I started work on another gansey a few years ago, when Gordon was there to lend a helping hand and answer questions. He’d given me one of his projects to continue, when I couldn’t find anything to knit during Zoom calls; he’d done the ribbing. It’s still in progress; the second sleeve is nearly finished.
 Raindrops on Peony The ‘training wheels’ for this gansey was one of the same pattern which I found in his boxes of finished jumpers. Another aid – and it was like finding the Holy Grail – were the measurements, stitch counts, and pattern that he’d chosen. Both the existing gansey and the notes provided helping hands in absentia, but I still managed to overlook details, like when to start the gusset and how many diamonds are on the sleeves. But these are just details, and this luscious pink gansey needn’t be an exact copy of the exemplar. All in all, I’m quite pleased with it, despite seeing all the little flaws that only the maker would notice.
Two Together
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I’m back in Scotland now, after a week in foreign climes – half in the south of France sandwiched with days in Edinburgh. The weather was . . . disappointingly much like home. Arrival day in France was hot, but the intervening week was generally cloudy, cool, and breezy. Expecting tropical temperatures, I’d packed for warmer temperatures. Layering up as much as possible, I longed for ‘Caithness summer’ clothing.
