Being ‘retired’, nothing much seems to happen from day to day, and then you realise it’s next week. Things are happening, but it’s mostly background noise – buying stuff I don’t need online; cancelling landline accounts; sending long e-mails relating to my brother in law’s income; deciding to co-organise a course in the autumn and thinking about that; a day out with a friend who was having a scan at the small hospital in Dingwall.
Distant rain
The landline is for the family home in Northamptonshire. After 7 months, even though not expensive, I decided it was time to cancel. When I’m there, all the calls are the cold-call variety, trying to sell insulation or double glazing. You rush to answer the phone, only to find it’s an automated call or someone you can’t understand. So I phoned BT to cancel. The agent on the other end was surprised that the account had been open for nearly 49 years! The Reids bought the house in January 1976 and the phone was installed two months later. I thought of keeping the line on until 50 years, but it’s an unnecessary spend just to reach a milestone.
Snowdrops
The course in the autumn is not for knitting, but for making, playing and decorating bamboo pipes. The group try to run one every year, but our membership is decreasing, and it might be one of the last we’re able to hold. This year, all other possible organisers declining the privilege, I was firmly in the headlights. I’ve agreed to do it with another experienced organiser. Unless I have some brainwaves over the next few months, it’ll be much the same as the last one, which I was unable to attend due to illness.
Staghorns
The day out with a friend wasn’t really a day out, but it’s better to think of it that way than as another trip down the road for a hospital appointment. Dingwall is north of Inverness by about 15 miles and although better than going to Inverness, it’s still a two-hour drive one way. Inevitably, it brought back memories of all the trips we’d made to Inverness for hospital appointments, mostly Gordon’s but a few mine.
Donald Gillies, August 1911.
(c) Wick Heritage Society
Used with permission
The next gansey will soon be on the needles. When the swatch is dry, I’ll take measurements and do the maths. This one will be for me. About five years ago, I decided to knit a gansey for myself, using finer yarn to get a gauge more akin to what I was seeing in the Johnston photos. It took a while to find a yarn that was slightly finer and still in my price bracket – Drops BabyAlpaca Silk. Unfortunately, it has been discontinued, and I fervently hope there is enough to finish the gansey. The pattern will be based on one of the Johnston photos, with a ribbed body, and a yoke with small double cables and a bold ‘lightning’ motif in the centre. Part of the pattern is hidden by the braces, but from what is visible, there would appear to be two identical tree and diamond panels next to each other.
The color of your yarn is lovely. I hope you have enough to complete it. I always enjoy reading your blog with the lovely photos. It is nice to read about another part of the world. I am in the US.
That’s a very distinctive pattern, looks a bit like a superman logo in the middle, perhaps this is a fisherman superhero.
I’m really looking forward to watching this one develop.
I can’t quite make out the cuff pattern although it looks suitably fancy. Good luck!
The cuff is 7 st 1×1 ribbing with a 4 st cable flanked by 2 k st. At least that’s what it looks like to me. Written out that would be P, K, P, K, P, K, P, K, 4 st cable, K.
Thank you Margaret!