Week 34: 31 August – 6 September

It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon… No, hang on a second, make that a quiet week in Dublin Street in Edinburgh, where the children are fair-haired with screams that could cut through tin, and the adults are sodden and huddled under umbrellas.

One of the things about running this blog is that I feel an irrational urge to apologise, or at least explain myself, when I haven’t made much progress. (Whereas in the good old days I could just laze around and no one would know. Just like being a student again, in fact.)

So why has nothing much happened this week? Well, first of all, we’ve had a friend to stay, my old friend Vincent, and sitting around listening to music while putting the archive world to rights kind of doesn’t leave a lot of room for knitting. Second, I’ve been put on different blood pressure pills, and have a whole new set of side effects to get used to, not to mention the general disorientation that comes with having your blood pressure altered. (Imagine the taking-the-lift-to-the-seventeenth-floor sensation when the plane is banking steeply, then dipping just before it comes in to land, and that’s what it’s been like. Though without the in-flight meal, so in fairness it’s not all bad.)

We went to see a stirring performance of Wagner’s first great opera, the Flying Dutchman, as part of the Festival, during which Margaret – and this is very important – did not fall asleep. And we went to see the closing fireworks display last night, which was spectacular, but somehow not quite as spectacular as I’d hoped. Maybe we were just in the wrong place, but I went hoping to have my heart ravished by noise and light, and instead it just underwent a mild flirtation, and didn’t leave its number.

Just half an hour ago, I received a big fat parcel of British Breeds Guernsey 5-ply, 13 balls each of navy and cream, so I’m all set for whatever happens next. I have an idea in mind now, a curving tattoo-like pattern for the lower body, maybe a fern-like design instead of the trellis, and panels  based on Maori carvings (with perhaps a Tiki centrepiece). I’ll start playing around with swatches and post the plotted out charts of the patterns and the swatches  on the blog once I get started.
In the meantime, there’s the old one to finish, and this is the good time, when you see one through to completion and the next – and better, since it doesn’t exist yet – starts to take shape in the mind’s eye. And lots of Wagner to listen to. As the Dutchman would say, “Die Frist ist um.” And who am I to argue with that?