Wick (John Macleod II): Week 5 – 6 February

It hardly seems fair, does it, that you slog your way through January, only to wake up one morning to find you’ve still got to negotiate February. It’s like seeing your numbers come up on the national lottery, and realising that you’re looking at last week’s ticket and you forgot to buy a new one. But still, there are sheep in the field at the end of the lane this week, and the Council are using up the roads budget by filling in a few of the worst potholes, two infallible signs that spring must be on its way.

Back in the day, the Romans didn’t bother with months during winter, and you can understand why: it’s all a bit samey, grey, dark, and cold. You might as well call the winter months Grim-months One, Two and Three and be done with it. Still, eventually they cracked and King Numa Pompilius invented February around 713 BC. The month takes its name from the festival of Februa, a time when people were ritually washed, and I still honour this ritual to this day: I take a bath once a year, whether I need one or not. (I think old King Numa probably first made that joke, probably at the same time as announcing he’d created the month.)

Fishing boat next to the Herring Mart

The Anglo-Saxons had their own name for it, Solmōnaþ (Sol-monath). The “sol” element could mean sun, mud or cakes baked in the hearth, all of which are possible: February is notoriously muddy, and the Anglo-Saxons did bake cakes, although the wonders of a Victoria sponge still lay in the distant future (n.b., here’s an idea for a short-lived tv show: The Great Anglo-Saxon Bake-Off, using only ingredients available in 800 AD). Historians usually breezily dismiss the “sun” option, though, because England isn’t known for its sunshine at this time of year, but I’m not so sure. It’s about now that I start to notice the days really getting longer, so maybe they named it that in a spirit of hope, of “Don’t give up now, lads, we’re nearly there”. Incidentally, another Old English name for February was Kale-monath, or “cabbage month”, which our local Indian takeaway sadly seems to have adopted as a default for all its vegetarian options.

Incidentally, one of my favourite John Lennon anecdotes comes from this time of year. The Beatles had just returned on 5th February 1964 from a series of concerts in Paris, and had to face the usual barrage of inane questions from the press. One of the more jaw-dropping related to the University of Detroit adopting a Stamp Out The Beatles movement: “They say your haircuts are un-American”. To which Lennon replied with faultless logic, “Well, it was very observant of them because we aren’t American, actually…”

============================

TECHNICAL STUFF

Milestone number one: I’ve reached the top of the body ribbing and am now footling about with the border chevron, a sort of amuse-bouche before we start the main course of the yoke pattern. As this gansey is for a lady who is not as tall as I, I’ve had to make some adjustments to the length of the various pattern elements. So I’ve made the body ribbing and chevron a little narrower, and will hopefully still be able to fit in most of the yoke.

Finally, a big thank you to the charming ladies of Killimster Women’s Institute for making Margaret and me so welcome last week when I gave a talk on ganseys and the herring fishing, and for braving the horrible weather—the rain was drumming so hard on the roof at one point I found myself wondering if it was too late to start rounding up animals two by two. My only regret—and this is true of life as a whole, not just last Thursday night—is that I had to leave so many of the amazing cakes they’d prepared untasted…