Friday, February 19, 2010

We got our picture!

I was going to try to grab the auctioneer’s illustration of it for you, or to offer a link, but their whole website seems to be down this morning, and yesterday’s sale will probably have disappeared into the mists by the time it comes back up.

We had learned, after leaving our bid, that a dealer was interested. We assumed that his bottomless purse could easily outbid us. I went along with my knitting yesterday to top up our bid from the floor and at least make him pay a bit more. But when the moment came the auctioneer, bidding on our behalf from our earlier instructions, couldn’t seem to stir up any interest.

She took a couple of bids from the centre of the room – or else she was taking bids from the chandelier to get things started; they do that sometimes – and then knocked it down to me well within the range of our original bid. As I was standing up and gathering my knitting together, the dealer rushed into the room – just too late.

I got the ribbing finished for the second sock, always a major step forward. The woman who wrapped the picture up for me had noticed me knitting, and admired the KF yarn. I had left the finished sock at home so there would be one less thing for me to get tangled up in, and was sorry I didn’t have it to show her.

Lee, I am terribly grateful for the reference to the Knitting Workshop. I have found the passage (and I agree about knitting books as bedtime reading). It will be very useful when the dreaded moment comes for cutting sleeveholes in the body of the Grandson Sweater – better, probably, than the passage on the DVD, although I will eventually revisit that, too.

More sleeve, in the evening. I have just under five inches to go, before the little band of pattern at the top – but of course the stitch count is ever increasing.

Non-knit

Thank you for straightening me out on Wallender. I know about him, of course, just didn’t recognise the author’s name. I’m pretty sure I’ve never read him. We tried the British television series with Kenneth Branagh but didn’t stick with it. (Our tastes in detectives are very square – Jeremy Brett as Sherlock, John Thaw as Morse.) Helen C.K.S. knows everything there is to know about moving pictures, cinematographic and televisual – she much prefers the Swedish television series for Wallender.

But that would mean subtitles, which interfere with my knitting.

But I’ll certainly try reading him.

7 comments:

  1. I am pleased you managed to get the picture. I am quite certain you will appreciate it more than the dealer!

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  2. Do try reading Henning Mankell - bear in mind that the Wallender books are rather different from his others. I have not yet managed to get on with any of the others.

    Absolutely the Swedish television series is the best for my money. I know that Mankell himself approved of Kenneth Branagh, and the British series, but the Swedish actor seems to inhabit the part better.

    Thinking of Arnaldur Indridason, I find I have read them all and in order, and found myself warming to the characters more as I went on - he lets the background of the people out gradually, and you don't get it all by reading just one book. Although they can be read as stand-alone stories, they do form a sequence which gives more depth.

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  3. Congratulations on getting the painting. (Feeling schadenfreude about the dealer).

    I too prefer the Swedish version of Wallander (with Dutch subtitles in my case).

    Have you tried the novels of Sjöwall & Wahlöö (earlier than Mankell). You can probably pick them up secondhand. They were written with political intent, but it was only overt in their last novel, I think.

    All the best,
    Dawn

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  4. GrannyPurple12:27 PM

    The novels of Sjowall & Wahloo have recently been reissued--a friend gave them all to me. Henning Mankell's Wallender books have been well served by their translators--they get the idiomatic stuff very well, so you never feel you're reading a translation. Mankell trivia: He is the late Ingmar Bergman's son-in-law.

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  5. we just got the Branagh-Wallender series this year - interesting... but i would like to see the Swedish ones.

    imagine you have seen INSPECTOR LEWIS? just finished series two here - love them and think they are doing a great job of continuity with hints of morse thrown in for us fans.

    btw sheila hancock is reading from THE TWO OF US all next week on BBC 7.

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  6. I'm so glad he was late and you have your picture. Masha'Allah!

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  7. I love the image of you packing up your knitting and the dealer rushing in just a few minutes late - I'm sure Alexander McCall Smith could use this in one of his books.

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