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 One of the advantages of being an archivist—apart from the afternoon naps, and the respect and adulation of apple-cheeked teenagers (at least I think “top ranker” was what they were shouting) is that you see days of yore as they really were. If you only view the past from the point of view of the novels of the time you’d never know that anyone used bad language. But they really did. Rather a lot.
Take the case of Charlotte Bronte. She of course swore like a navvy and used to sneak out of the vicarage to go bare-knuckle fighting in country fairs to earn a little extra pin money. Indeed, the original manuscript of Jane Eyre is so full of swearing that it had to be heavily censored by her sister Emily before it could be published—and the famous sentence at the end of the novel, “Reader, I married him”, was originally so shocking—the verb describing what Jane did to Mr Rochester (and his dog, Pilot), so explicit—that the manuscript remains under guard in a locked vault beneath the British Library to this day.
 The Girnel, Staxigoe Well, I was reminded of this by a manuscript in the archives at Wick that we came across last week. It dates from 1753 and describes an encounter between a merchant called John Shand and the Excise. In short, Shand landed a cargo of French brandy and tobacco at Staxigoe harbour a couple of miles up the coast from here, and it was impounded. The Excise men hired boats to take the goods to Wick, and Shand, evidently a man of strong passions, at once hired a boat of his own to intercept them in the bay.
 Pigeons on the harbour wall Shouting abuse he got on board one boat and attacked a member of the crew with a cudgel, then threatened to shoot him with a loaded pistol. Luckily no one was hurt (and Shand, with a persistence that’s really rather admirable, went on to break into the Tollbooth at midnight to rescue his cargo).
But I was intrigued by a deposition by the crewman who’d been assaulted: he said Shand came on board calling him a “scoundrel son of a bitch”. (Isn’t that great? I plan to use it in my next appraisal.) I’ve never heard of anyone being called an SOB that early—it’s something I associate with Chicago gangsters or, at a pinch, my dentist under her breath whenever I break another tooth—but this dates from a generation before American Independence.
 I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. Sooner or later the unexpurgated Pride and Prejudice will be published (“Petticoats of Fury” by Jane Austen: Cage Fighter), with its famous opening line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife who can suck the pips out of an orange without peeling it first.”
What’s that you say? Ganseys? Oh, yes. Well, as you will see, I am rapidly advancing down the second sleeve and expect to finish it sometime this week. Then it’s just a question of darning in the ends, blocking, and then I’ve got a few days pencilled in for panicking that it’s not going to fit…
Finally, thanks to everyone for your solicitude and suggestions regarding my various ailments. I now have no fewer than three referrals to Inverness Hospital—I had already been thinking of leaving my body to medical science; it’s just that I’d planned to do this after I was dead…
[P.S. You can read more about the adventures of potty-mouth John Shand on the Caithness Archives website.]
 Apart from a whole bunch of memories, I brought back from the States last week a broken tooth, which just sheared away like a cliff face exposed to coastal erosion. (This happened in an excellent Mexican restaurant in upstate New York while we were eating tortilla chips; and few things can be more disconcerting than crunching your way through your own teeth under the mistaken assumption they go nicely with guacamole.) Well, the tooth is now sorted, thanks to some nifty reconstruction work by my dentist.
 Creels at Lybster harbour But I’ve also had a recurrence of the mouth infection (ulcers and swollen lips) I suffered some months ago; it’s slowly wearing off, though it did prompt said dentist—rather unfeelingly, I thought—to ask me if I’d had cosmetic surgery to make my lips plumper, before howling with laughter and then pretending she’d got something in her eye until she sobered up. (I let it pass—my mouth was by then so numb I sounded like I was eating a mouthful of taffy; and she was the one holding the drill, after all.)
 Well. Back to business. I’ve finished the first sleeve, including the turned-back cuff to allow the wearer to adjust the length (this is my insurance policy when I’m knitting a gansey for someone too far away for me to get up close and personal with a tape measure; or someone adroit enough to obtain a court order). And I’ve started the second.
This is where my cunning wheeze of using the little bit of leftover yarn from the first cone to start the sleeve really pays off—having done all the hard work weeks ago, rather than have to pick up the stitches around the armhole (the knitting equivalent of doing quadratic equations), now all I have to do is slip them off the holding yarn and Robert is your mother’s sister’s husband, as the saying goes.
 Autumn colour in the churchyard In other news, Judit of this parish has been busy again, finding new things to do with gansey patterns and a bit of yarn—in this case, collars with hearts and mini-cables. And speaking as someone who keeps warm indoors in winter by wrapping a scarf so thick around my neck strangers assume I’ve been treated for whiplash, this seems like a rather brilliant idea. You can see the splendid results here – it’s on the third page of Judit’s gallery.
Oh, and neither doctor nor dentist could offer an explanation as to why the infection, if such it is, should have recurred. It may be dietary, they said, an allergic reaction to something I ate. My blood ran cold—quelle horreur—what if I’m allergic to coffee and doughnuts? Then there would be nothing for it but to compose my death haiku and open my veins. But then a happier thought occurred—maybe I’m just allergic to Wick…
 Well, here we are, back in dear old Caithness after our recent holiday in the States. The temperature is a brisk 8ºC, compared with the 23ºC we left behind us on Cape Cod. And now the clocks have gone back (words to be spoken in the tone of weary dismay of Gandalf recognising he’s up against a balrog). Can woolly socks be far away? I think not.
But, Lord, I’d forgotten just how ghastly travel is. Heathrow Terminal 5 seems to’ve been remodelled using a CIA manual for breaking the resistance of terrorists by bombarding them with bright lights and noise; while the legroom on aircraft has been reduced to such an extent that when I got off the plane at Boston I was so bent and hunched a travelling party of anthropologists excitedly tried to claim me as a hitherto undiscovered species of hominid.
 The line for Jenny the Potter While we were there we spent part of a day at the Sheep and Wool Festival at Rhinebeck, New York. The site appeared relatively empty until you went inside one of the craft vendors’ sheds, where crowds of people heaved and jostled and struggled to get near the stalls and samples. (Imagine the Tokyo underground at rush hour, with craft stalls along both sides of the carriage and a game of rugby being played up the middle, and you’ll get the idea.)
 It was obviously a place to be seen as much as to see, and everyone was dressed in their finest knittery. Forget the stands, you could spend all day just watching people in fancy jumpers, and if there had been seating for fainthearted spouses I probably would’ve. (Special mention goes to the guy with the orange knitted shorts, a stark challenge to the view that humanity represents nature’s last word; in fact, I’ll never look at a chocolate orange in the same way again…)
 Gordon & Ginny A highlight for me was meeting Ginny, who recognised us from the blog pictures and came over and introduced herself. As many of you will know, I occasionally wrestle with existential dilemmas about continuing this blog, and it’s always gratifying to be told that it’s worthwhile. So, Ginny, thank you for taking the trouble to say hello, it was a pleasure to meet you and apologies that you found me still jet lagged and (more) incoherent (than usual). I hope I got your name right!
 We also stayed with Annie. Anyway, sincere thanks to Bill and Gail for everything. If, as Benjamin Franklin said, house guests are like fish and begin to smell after three days, then you deserve some sort of medal for putting up with us for ten—it was much appreciated.
I didn’t take my knitting with me, so not there’s not much progress to report this week. But in between bouts of jet lag I’ve done a little more knitting down the sleeve, and with luck will finish the rest of the jumper well before Christmas.
Christmas? It’ll be here soon enough – and this weekend it’s Halloween (time to oil the traps and freshen the leaves concealing the tiger pit in the driveway). I was going to say that now the nights are drawing in—but since this is Caithness, it’s the afternoons that are getting shorter, dagnabbit. Oh, well—I tell myself to hang in there; after all, it’ll soon be March…
 As you probably know by now, you can talk to your smartphone and it talks back, much like computers in Star Trek. A conversation I had with my phone today went much like this:
Me: These gansey photos are upside down again!
Phone: I expect you were holding me wrong.
Me: Holding you wrong? There’s only two ways to hold a phone – vertical and sideways.
Phone: And upside down—don’t forget upside down. Yeah, you probably had me wrong way up.
Me: Upside down! How on earth could you be upside down?
Phone: Maybe you were standing on your head. Were you standing on your head?
Me: Why would I be standing on my head?
Phone: Don’t ask me, mate, it’s your head… Joie de vivre, perhaps?
Me: Joie de bleedin’ vivre? Since you came into my vivre there’s been precious little joie, I can tell you.
Phone (offended): That was uncalled for. Some of us have feelings, you know.
Me (muttering): If smugness is a feeling, maybe.
Phone (even more offended): I heard that. (Uncertainly, with a hint of desperation:) Look, you said you were from New Zealand, didn’t you?
Me (suspicious): Yes.
Phone: There you are then. That explains it.
Me: No it doesn’t!
Phone: Yeah, course it does. Southern hemisphere, right? Everything’s upside down there.
[Tense pause]
 Indian Summer in Wick: Day 1 Me: You answer general knowledge questions, don’t you?
Phone (happily): Oh, yeah. Ask me anything, go on.
Me (clearing my throat): Siri, what’s the furthest anyone’s thrown a mobile phone?
Phone: Ah! I know that one. The world record stands at 110.42 metres by Dries Feremans of Belgium, set in 2014. Why do you aarrrggghhh…
But we’ll draw a veil over the rest. Suffice to say that I didn’t beat the record, but it was far enough for my purposes.
 Indian Summer in Wick: Day 2 Well, depending on which way up the images display you’ll see that I’m about 6 inches down the sleeve, have finished the gusset and the pattern band and am on the plain section down to the cuff.
This is the last knitting I’ll be doing for a couple of weeks, for by the time you read this I shall hopefully be on my way to America for a holiday, flying from Wick to Edinburgh to Heathrow to Boston, and getting in at 3 am UK time. (It seemed like a good idea at the time … not so much just now.) The plan is to not do very much when I get there: so far I’ve got breathing and brushing my teeth pencilled in, but that’s about it; I need a break.
 … and yes, Day 3… (sigh) So the next blog entry will be Monday 26 October, depending on jet lag, whether the house has been hit by a meteorite while we were away, etc. etc. See you in a couple of weeks!
 I got onto the subject of embarrassment in conversation with my next-door neighbour this week, those moments of maximum humiliation that cause you to wake up at four in the morning red-faced with shame and mortification at the recollection.
For me it had been what the aviation industry calls a near miss. You see, I had to get a blood test recently. I rolled up my sleeve and laid my left arm on the desk, my hand open, fingers loosely cupped, at rest. The nurse leaned forward to get the needle into the vein just so, and in the process I felt her right breast slide into the cradle of my upturned palm.
Time seemed to stand still. I froze like someone wired to his seat by explosives, horribly aware that the slightest muscle spasm or sneeze might result in a lawsuit. I tried to think of something neutral but for some reason only giant octopi or bowls of trifle came to mind.
Of course, for some people the right course of action would have been a hearty squeeze and a jovial cry of “Honk honk!” to break the ice—but somehow it just didn’t feel like the right time.
Well. The moment passed—the nurse, a consummate professional, finished the task in hand and leaned back (though she did ask, when taking my blood pressure moments later, if I could think of any reason why it was a little on the high side…).
Moving on, I have this week finished the front and back on the gansey,
joined the shoulders and knit the collar. Also, since the main picture was taken, I did something I’ve always meant to do but never got round to: as I had a little bit of yarn left on one cone I picked up the stitches around one armhole and knit a few rows, then, when the yarn ran out, placed all the stitches on a holder (i.e., more yarn) before starting the other sleeve.
I have a couple of reasons for doing this. Firstly, as you know, I hate picking up  stitches, so this way I get it all over with at once, and after one sleeve is done I can just carry on where I left off with the other. Secondly, I always find it hard to get back into the pattern when I start the second sleeve—it always feel like a twice-told tale. So I’m hoping this will make it easier and, if you’ll forgive the expression, seamless.
 Sunset at Wick with added sheep Oh, and you may be wondering where my next-door neighbour comes into things. Well, after I told him my story, he told me of a time he worked in a bookshop. There was a devastatingly attractive and sophisticated American lass there who all the chaps wanted to impress. One day, she dropped some books. One of her male colleagues at once said, “Allow me!” and bent over to retrieve them… Alas, an unfortunate compression of internal gasses meant that, as he bent down, he emitted an almighty fart.
I don’t know how you get over something like that, if you ever do. Probably changing your name and joining the Foreign Legion is the only course left to you. And at least, the next time 4.00 am comes round and I’m staring hollow-eyed at the wall, I can always think, well, it could have been worse…
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One of the advantages of being an archivist—apart from the afternoon naps, and the respect and adulation of apple-cheeked teenagers (at least I think “top ranker” was what they were shouting) is that you see days of yore as they really were. If you only view the past from the point of view of the novels of the time you’d never know that anyone used bad language. But they really did. Rather a lot.
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. Sooner or later the unexpurgated Pride and Prejudice will be published (“Petticoats of Fury” by Jane Austen: Cage Fighter), with its famous opening line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife who can suck the pips out of an orange without peeling it first.”
Moving on, I have this week finished the front and back on the gansey,
stitches, so this way I get it all over with at once, and after one sleeve is done I can just carry on where I left off with the other. Secondly, I always find it hard to get back into the pattern when I start the second sleeve—it always feel like a twice-told tale. So I’m hoping this will make it easier and, if you’ll forgive the expression, seamless.