Tuesday, March 29, 2016

We had a grand Easter, and everyone is now safely returned to their various bases. Rachel and Ed had to do the long drive down the face of England yesterday, but they reached home in the early evening and should be fit for work today. All three of us, here in Drummond Place, spent the afternoon drowsing in our chairs. Today I will restock the larder and then life can begin anew.

Southern Gal, thanks for putting me right about the date of Passover this year After reading your message, I did a bit of Googling and then gave up in despair. I know that Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. I had always assumed that the Orthodox rule is the same except that they use the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian one for determining the date of the equinox. It turns out to be a bit more complicated than that.

And the Jewish calendar is far more complicated than either of the above. Passover is always on the same date, I think, but the calendar itself isn’t attached to the Gregorian one, why should it be? It’s much older, and it floats about a bit, so that Jews ask each other, When is Passover this year? just like Christians enquiring about Easter.

I have a dear Jewish friend, an Oberlin friend, a retired academic, who writes a private daily blog, mostly intended for her family, but she generously includes friends. I enjoy it enormously. She had been asking lately, Who’s coming for Passover? and I had leapt to the conclusion that the date was the same as that of Easter. No – she was thinking well ahead.

It would be an interesting question to pursue, if I had the mental energy. Where did Christians get that Paschal moon? How does it relate to the Jewish calendar? It must be in there somewhere.

Knitting

I hope everybody has by now heard Felicity Ford singing her Buachaille Song. It’s beyond wonderful, and has inspired me to begin to try to learn how to spell the name of Kate Davies’ new yarn. Listening to Felicity sing, I deduce that the pronunciation is more or less Booke-ul.

Ironically, one of the things I wanted to do at the EYF market, and didn’t achieve, was to spend some time fondling Buachaille. I’ve seen it. Kathy at Kathy’s Knits around the corner was a member of the Seven Skeins Club – they got to see it first. She showed me some, and it’s good all right, but I would have liked to wallow in it a bit more and think about projects.


As for actual knitting, since I saw you last, I have finished the bit of the Sous Sous front where I had to do six repeats of a six-row sequence involving two decrease rows, and have now embarked on eight repeats of a four-row sequence involving one decrease row. And when that is done, the front will be damn’ near finished.  

6 comments:

  1. Love the Felicity Ford song! Although I think there is (or should be) a soft 'ch' rather than 'k' in the middle.

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  2. Thank you for the link - I loved hearing this song :)

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  3. I never tried to pronounce it even in my head, so I enjoyed learning that. I love that so many of the religious holidays are tied to the moon's phases. Isn't Ramadan linked to a star/moon appearance as well?

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  4. Anonymous2:27 PM

    Passover - yes, I got caught out by the date, trying to make plans for April with a Jewish friend. I think of Easter being so linked with Passover, and often of course they do fall close together in our modern calendar, it's always a surprise when they don't. Felix's song - yes, it's wonderful. Thanks to you, Jean, I now get an email when Kate Davies has a new post.
    - Beth in Ontario

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  5. GrannyPurple2:36 PM

    The complication of the Jewish calendar is that it is lunar, but in a cycle of 19 years there are 7 leap years. And each leap year adds a whole month to the calendar.

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  6. Carol, San Diego6:35 PM

    I think Knitlass may be correct on the pronounciation. Kate has a sound-bite on her blog: http://katedaviesdesigns.com/2015/08/22/buachaille-coming-soon/
    One of these days-I'll be collecting some of her yarn!

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