A few days ago, I decided that the curtain rails should be re-installed and the curtains rehung, after being taken down in preparation for the decorator to paint around the new windows. Saturday was pencilled into the schedule as Curtain Day.
The curtains had been washed, dried and folded, and only required ironing to remove the worst creasing. But it was far too spectacular a day to iron indoors. There was not a cloud in the welkin and the winds were light. A walk was in order, and I set off for the harbour. I hadn’t planned to go to the Trinkie, the salt water pool south of town, but found my feet taking me there.
Waiting
From a distance I could see a few parked cars, and assumed they were tourists or volunteers working to repair the pool, which was severely damaged in winter storms. On approaching, it was plain that it was neither. Most had tripods, binoculars, and lenses as long as your arm. They were cetacean watchers, on the lookout for a pod of orca.
A pod had been sighted to the north at Duncansby earlier, moving south. This would be a good opportunity to see them, so I waited for a while. Not having the patience of a die-hard orca spotter, and having curtains to iron, I started home after a while. However, on my way, I asked one of the watchers how they knew where and when to go. I knew there was information online, but had never found it. She said there were Facebook and WhatsApp groups. The Facebook feed was slightly too old to be useful, but the WhatsApp group, which she checked frequently, had more current information.
Watching
Eventually the pod was sighted off North Head, just a mile or two away. We couldn’t see the orca, but my new acquaintance could see a group of people watching them through her camera. When the orca finally passed us, it was, to be truthful, a disappointment. They were difficult to see in the darkness of the sea, and were far offshore. We could only see the occasional white flashes of their sides and an exhalation of vapour when they breathed.
But still – orca!
What does this have to do with curtains? They’re still not up. Waiting for the orca delayed the plan; only half of the curtains got ironed.
Easter Chocolate
In gansey news, there is not much progress, as my week is now busier. After a long hiatus, there was a return to the museum, which seemed much the same, from the displays to the welcoming volunteers at the door. At the top of the stairs, however, the first thing in view was a new gansey display, which had been moved from a corner to a more prominent and better lit location. Surrounding the ganseys are enlarged photos of fishermen in ganseys from the Johnston Collection.
A month or so back, the local camera club met to discuss upcoming events. One of the outcomes was, “Let’s Put on a Show!”. Accordingly, the venue was chosen, someone was contacted to matt and mount all the photos, and the size of the prints was determined. Any camera club member was welcome to take part. After having acquired an elderly but excellent photo printer near the start of lockdown, I decided to participate. It was high time to get to grips with printing photographs at home. Little did I realise the work involved.
Since the printer had run out of ink, it was necessary to source some. Original cartridges are pricey, and don’t last very long. There are alternatives, but the only viable one was refillable cartridges. Accordingly I purchased a starter kit which included cartridges, ink, gloves, and the bits needed to refill the cartridges. Then the learning curve got steeper. I had to fill the cartridges, but the kit had no instructions. The internet, as usual, was the fount of all knowledge.
‘Aquarelle’
Ink cartridges are little marvels of design. Filling them for the first time is more involved than squirting ink into a hole. They need to be ‘primed’ to fill a tiny reservoir within the cartridge. After watching a video, the first cartridge was primed successfully. But the second one . . . there was yellow ink everywhere. There is a reason the kit included disposable gloves! The cartridge flew out of my hand, leaving essential parts behind and the cartridge on the floor (the carpet was o.k.!). The rest of the cartridges – there are 9 in total – were filled without any serious incident.
So, if you’re in the area between 5 April – 11 May, the Thurso Camera Club is having an exhibit at the art gallery in Thurso Library. The exhibit consists of prints and a slideshow, with 5 prints and 5 slides per participant. Entry is free.
Thomson of Thurso
In gansey news, the chart is now done. It took a lot of thinking to arrive at nearly the same chart I’d begun with. The nub of the problem was fitting in 8 stitches. One solution would be to enlarge motifs, making the panels wider. But if the diamonds are wider, they’re also taller, so at the final height of the yoke there might be a partial diamond instead of a complete one. Eventually, a solution appeared – add one stitch to each edge, and one stitch either side of the diamond panels, without enlarging the diamonds.
But there was a heart-stopping moment at the end of the first round of the pattern, when there seemed to be about 5 extra stitches. A recount was in order, during which various fixes rolled were thought of, none of them pleasant. Fortunately, there was only one extra stitch. To avoid decreasing, a 1×1 cable moved the purl at the gusset edge over the extra knit stitch, which moved under the purl to become the increase on that side of the gusset. As a workaround, it’s satisfactory – a good mantra is “no one will ever stare at your armpit”.
I doubt that many of you will have played handbells.Over the past 15 or so years I’ve come across them and had a go, mostly at taster sessions run at other courses I was attending.About seven years ago, in an attempt to Get Out and Meet More People, I contacted one of the local handbell ‘teams’.Making music on a regular basis was also a factor in Getting Out.The local orchestra wasn’t a possibility, as I didn’t play an orchestral instrument. Eventually I also joined a handbell group in Thurso.
Handbells
Ringing handbells takes a bit of getting used to.With most music, you’re able to play the tune or at least a continuous line.But with handbells, you’re lucky if you play two consecutive notes.If you can recall the version of ‘Jingle Bells’ with barking dogs, and if you can imagine that each dog can bark two notes, then you’ll get a vague idea.The ‘dog’ on the left of you is playing E and F, you’re playing G and A, and the ‘dog to the right plays B and C. Expand this to two or three octaves, and there are enough notes to play tunes and harmony. The next thing to get accustomed to is playingat the right time and for the correct length of time.This is of course the same as any music, but it requires more concentration when you’re only playing two notes scattered throughout the piece.You need to keep track of where you are, and damp (stop the bell ringing) at the right time.A sense of rhythm helps immensely, as well as being able to count up to at least 5.
Celandine
There’s also a technique involved in ringing a bell so it sounds its best, all quickly learnt. Other ringing techniques include shakes – the equivalent of a trill, but on one note, and thumb damping – placing your thumb on the bell while it rings, for a staccato effect.All in all, it’s good fun.It’s a team effort, a real community, where each ringer depends on the others to keep the music going.
Waves by the Lighthouse
Why am I wittering on about handbells?This past Saturday, the Assembly Rooms in Wick was the venue for the Scottish Regional Rally of the Handbell Ringers of Great Britain.From morning to late afternoon, ringers from teams from all over the UK rang their bells en masse and as individual teams.Including the local teams from Wick and Thurso, there were about 65 ringers there, from as far south as Hereford and as far north as Orkney.At the end of the day, there was a brief concert featuring the pieces we’d practiced during the day.
Consequently, there was no time to knit that day.But the keen-eyed among you will see that the yoke has been reached, after the long slog up the foothills of the stockinette body.The yoke pattern is in process of calculation and will be done soon.
We’ve paid off mortgages before, but as far as my fading recall can tell, only when we’ve moved house. Late last week, having decided it was a Good Idea, I phoned the building society for a redemption figure. It was about what I’d expected, and the next day the payment was set up to redeem the mortgage on Tuesday. The mortgage was originally due to be repaid when Gordon retired, in just under two years. I reasoned, Gordon is effectively retired now, so I may as well pay it off and reduce monthly outgoings.
Stormy Shore
It should be a joyful occasion, but it felt like just another transaction. Maybe it will sink in when the paperwork is completed. But I did my best to celebrate: I bought an iron. I’d been looking at it for months, watching it become unavailable, then available, then the price spooling up and down like a yo-yo. The old one, bought in 1985, gave up the ghost last summer. This sturdy old iron was a good hefty weight for pressing seams. Of course, I don’t really need a new iron – the backlog of Gordon’s shirts, which were about the only things ironed regularly – were ironed at the end of last year. Those shirts hung on a door for months, glaring at me as I went up and down the stairs to my office. I had to iron them, it just wasn’t right to hang them in the wardrobe unironed. And now, to justify the purchase of the new iron, I’ll have to carve time to sew out of my flabby schedule.
St Fergus at end of day
And what exactly is a ‘mortgage’? Where does that strange word come from? The OED, always a go-to source, says it comes from Middle French – ‘mort’ + ‘gage’, or ‘dead pledge’. The explanation gets a bit complicated after that; the concept seems to be that the loan (pledge) is ‘dead’ after it’s been paid off. But I’m happy enough to know that it came from French.
Looking South from The Trinkie
There has been better progress on the gansey this week. I was able to do a good tranche of knitting on Saturday afternoon, when I visited a friend. We sat in the sun lounge listening to music and knitting. I’d taken the gansey along, just in case. It was windy and cold, not a great day to wander the muddy back lanes of Caithness. But even with the chilly weather, I was thankful. Looking through photos yesterday, I saw that last year at this time there was snow and ice on the ground. We were supervised in our knitting by the wise old cat Solomon. Though I’m sure he must have been a young, silly, and carefree kitten in his earlier years, chasing leaves around the garden and being the terror of the bird population. Now he watches them from the comfort of his favourite chair in the sun, cursing them for their flightiness.
Which reminds me of a bit of trivia I heard the other evening: a collective noun for kittens is ‘kindle’. It comes from Middle English, and was apparently revived in the 20th C, according to the OED.
It’s been more of a rollercoaster week than some.This week’s ‘potholes’ were mostly aural.Over the past three months, I’ve listened to the radio more.We’ve always been regular listeners, mostly the classical music stations.It would wake us up gently in the morning and send us off to sleep in the evening. Now, I’m tuning in more frequently, mostly to keep me company while I’m brushing my teeth or cooking or another household task.But generally, most of the listening is done while I sit in bed of a morning, slowly gathering speed to start the day.
Snowdrops on a bank
Monday’s aural pothole was the CanCan, from Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld.I am sure you all know the tune.Just pause, for a moment, to visualise it being sung by dancing cartoon cats – meow, meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow-meow meow-meow . . . .This is the image that would appear in our heads whenever we heard it. It comes from an episode of the cartoon series Futurama, where alien talking cats take over the world by feline cuteness in order to reverse the earth’s spin.The power thus generated would cause their stationary home planet to resume its rotation.This chorus line of singing, dancing cats never failed to amuse Gordon; it was one of his favourite scenes from the series.
Monday also brought a minor pothole with ‘Never Weather-beaten Sail’, an Elizabethan piece with a beautiful tune and mournful words.It’s not a tune I ever associated with Gordon; its sadness is what was affecting.
The Bremner Monument
Last Sunday and Thursday mornings had the same pothole, in slightly different forms.Sunday was a choral version of John Dowland’s Frog Galliard, and Thursday’s was the version on lute,also known as The Earl of Essex Galliard.I made it through the lute version, the choral version I had to mute, because of the words:
Now, O now, I needs must part,
Parting though I absent mourn.
Absence can no joy impart:
Joy once fled cannot return.
While I live I needs must love,
Love lives not when Hope is gone.
Now at last Despair doth prove,
Love divided loveth none.
In gansey news, there are now just over 7 inches done above the welt.The gusset starts at 12 inches, so it’ll be a few weeks yet.Following suggestions in the comments last week, I’ve learned the Norwegian purl, which I’ve known of for some years but hadn’t yet learnt.Alas, it’s not for me.There’s too much gymnastic wiggling of the needles and then catching the dpns in the work.
Finally, I have totted up all the blog donations over the past three months, so thank you very much for your generous support.With your donations, and those collected at the Service and donated privately, I will be able to give generous donations to the Johnston Collection of the Wick Heritage Society and Cancer Research UK. Many thanks again. You’re the best.
A few days ago, I decided that the curtain rails should be re-installed and the curtains rehung, after being taken down in preparation for the decorator to paint around the new windows. Saturday was pencilled into the schedule as Curtain Day.
