Wick (Thos McKay): Week 11 – 26 August

Alas, the conversion to a digital landline was not without a few glitches. First, I had to figure out how to connect the analogue phone to the router. An adapter came in the same box as the router, the instructions informed me. But where was the box? Ah yes, under the bed. Where else? With the phone duly plugged in to the router, nothing happened.

The next step was to have peer at the router software, to see if there were any settings I could change, but I couldn’t see any I was confident to tinker with. I haven’t had success changing settings on the router in the past, even with instructions and videos. Perhaps the settings would take a while to percolate through the system, I thought, and left it until the next day.

Grasses in the wind

The phone was still not working the following day, and I tried other solutions using the provider’s set-up and troubleshooting instructions. I determined that the phone could connect to the router because there were a few steps that needed to be confirmed with a dial-in code. But still nothing. A phone call to support was necessary.

After a short wait, relatively speaking, the tech on the other end quickly found that a crucial setting on the router hadn’t been transferred. He could do it from his end, and a few minutes later, job done. I now have a working digital phone line.

Space Stations

As an aside, the development of the telephone is rather interesting. It wasn’t just Alexander Graham Bell. Other inventors were involved, including Phillipp Reis in Germany (who devised the name), Elisha Gray, Antonio Meucci of Italy, Thomas Edison, and others whose names have been lost to history. I won’t go into detail but encourage you to research it.

Valerian

With the gansey, a total of ten rows were unravelled. I’m never very good with numbers and it’s even worse trying to count rows in knitting. To completely eradicate the miscreant rows, another row needed to come out. It took about one and a half sessions of knitting to regain the lost ground, and a few rows after that, it was time to divide for front and back. I’ve started the back, and it’s full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. In a few inches, I’ll decide about the shoulders – three needle bind-off, or a shoulder strap? The photo on which this pattern is based appears to have a narrow shoulder strap of double moss stitch. I’ve been thinking about repeating the fishbone motif in a ‘grown-on’ strap – an extension to the front or back, instead of a strap knit from the neck down which joins front and back. Partly it will depend on where the patterning ends when the back is at the correct length.