Monday, July 27, 2015

I think I have one follower fewer this morning.

Sorry about late. Archie is here, off an overnight bus from London – my first duty was to feed him.

I've retreated to the old computer for today. I fiddled around with the Mac a bit yesterday. Don't change the margins, is the first thing I learned. But even sticking to good old Times New Roman 12 point, the text on the screen didn't conform. It was very small. I zoomed it larger, for the purposes of composition. But when I pasted the result into Blogger, it reverted to awfully small. I've got HTML for Dummies around here somewhere. Maybe there's a font code I can insert.

The irony of the situation is that I wanted a Mac because I was being driven mad by pop-up ads, and they have largely gone away. Either McAfee or Windows itself must have figured out how to deal with them. So now I've got an extra computer. I ordered both "OS X Yosemite for Seniors" and "...for Dummies".

Knitting

As planned, I finished a broad stripe on the Tokyo shawl and started the next one, which faces the other way. It's not really difficult, but one must pay attention.

So today, dog. Here is the model:


The knitted dog won't be fluffy like that. Try a wire brush? Is that a difference between Parson Jack Russell (which this dog is) and the plain-vanilla Jack Russell of the pattern? At least he's got nice short legs.

Non-knit

Here's a fun game for you. Rachel phoned last night to say that Hellie, this year's bride, who is a literary agent, thinks it would be nice to have a little pile of, say, three books on each of the tables at her wedding “breakfast”. It was then Rachel's idea, I think, to have all the titles be somehow wedding-related.

Rachel gave off packing yesterday and spent the day rummaging through her piles of books (many of which will have to go into storage – no room in the new house). She's found enough for 7 of the 14 tables, she said. Pretty good going. I then threw myself into the task and have selected “Busman's Honeymoon” (Dorothy Sayers), “The Bridesmaid” (Ruth Rendell), “The Love of a Good Woman” (Alice Munro) and “Delta Wedding” (Eudora Welty). And what about “A Woman in White”?

Our niece C. with whom I recently went to Athens is going down to London this weekend, to help Rachel pack. She can take such books as I have found so far – and the pocket squares, so I don't have to trust the post office.


All title suggestions eagerly received. 

18 comments:

  1. Once upon a time there was the Jack Russell Terrier. Invented by a Victoran sporting parson. Throughly plebian, with only a local word-of-mouth pedigree (e.g. Lordy's gameeeper got a nice little bitch that throws useful pups) they usually made their own arrangements regarding breeding.
    A few decades ago, a clique of owners were so enthusiastic about their mutts that they wanted them to be pedigree so they prevailed upon the Kennel Club to work up a description, and start recording pedigrees and thus arrived the Parson Jack Russell - who has to see the mate's papers before they can get down to business otherwise the little dears will be born the wrong side of the blanket.
    Jack Russells - Parson or not - come in three coats
    Smooth - self defining.
    Rough or Wire - very scruffy and sticky-outy, and quite stiff of hair.
    Broken - mostly smooth but with quite a few sticky-out bits which are usually softer than the Rough.
    Your dog-friend being a Parson, just means his parents had the paperwork.

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  2. All of the Jane Austens would seem to be suitable, since they all end with everyone paired up with their perfect partner.

    Most wools can be brushed up nicely with a good stiff toothbrush. A fingernail brush or vegetable brush would probably suit for larger bits of knitting, You might try it on a swatch first.

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  3. Chaucer - the wife of bath;
    Elizabeth Gaskell - wives and daughters
    Franz Kafka - wedding preparations in the country

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  4. Member of the Wedding, Age of Innocence that's all I find off the top of my head. Regarding Pages - I don't like it, and I am a Macuser of too many years. I use Microsoft Word for the Mac.

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  5. What a wonderful idea for the wedding tables! I agree that Jane Austin is a must.

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  6. A more modern list could include "Lucy Sullivan's Getting Married".

    There is also the Australian novel simply titled "Eucalyptus" by Murray Bail, as well as the 'so awful it's good' "Dimboola", originally a play I think.

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  7. Nancy Mitford Love in a Cold Climate A book I thought appropriate to take on my honeymoon 46 years ago in Kenya. Not that we were in a cold climate - I just thought it was a suitable book for a honeymoon.

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  8. On Blogger, one should be able to select whatever text one has, then, at the top of that composing page, select what size font you want from the Tt icon. I hope this helps.

    Please don't give up on the Mac; they really are fine machines.

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  9. Fiona2:53 PM

    Elizabeth Gaskell, "North and South" (title of the first chapter is Haste to the Wedding)
    Vikram Seth, "A Suitable Boy"

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  10. your post about Mac for seniors made me laugh out loud. I continually find the virtual world confounding.
    And I have learned about Jack Russells from one of the comments....very funny about the papers.
    My book suggestions are: "The Bride of Lammermoor" by Sir Walter Scott; "A Member of the Wedding" by Carson McCullers and "The Wedding" by Nicholas Sparks. I have read none of these, but am tempted to get the Bride of Lammermoor on my Kindle. There is a free edition.
    I love seeing all the suggestions.

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  11. The HTML I use in my email signature is: LEFT BRACKETfont size="4"RIGHT BRACKET (The preview says "Your HTML cannot by accepted: Tag is not allowed: FONT"! I hope this works . . . .)

    I'm sure you can fiddle with the number until you find one that works for you. Good luck!

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  12. Anonymous5:22 PM

    Love these literary games. Others have suggested "A Suitable Boy" (excellent read) and "A Member of the Wedding". Glad to see our Alice Munro's "The Love of a Good Woman" - another of her collections is "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" - title story, and the last story there, "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" is very much a story about a marriage, on which the movie "Away from Her" was based. From two other Canadian authors, there's L. M. Montgomery's "Anne's House of Dreams", with wedding and honeymoon near the beginning, and Margaret Atwood's "The Robber Bride", based, so they say, on a real-life nasty British-born Canadian journalist. E. M. Forster's "A Room with a View" ends with the honeymoon couple in their room on the Arno in Florence.
    - Beth in Ontario

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  13. "Committed" by Elizabeth Gilbert

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  14. Anonymous9:20 PM

    Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, by Julia Strachey should be suitable. Googling it just now, I find it has been made into a movie.....must look that up now, too!

    Barbara M. In NH

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  15. Pygmalion/My Fair Lady
    Katie Fforde is a "lighter romance" writer who has written such titles as Wedding Season, A perfect proposal, Love letters, Summer of Love, A vintage wedding etc. (Haven't actually read them but people say they are "nice".)

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  16. 'The Little White Horse', Elizabeth Goudge (magic and love)

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  17. Melinda Jackson10:05 AM

    "The Marrying of Chani Kaufmann" by Eve Harris.

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  18. Anonymous6:16 PM

    A couple of British authors to add:
    Home for the Wedding by Elizabeth Cadell
    Miss Buncle Married by D. E. Stevenson

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