Friday, July 15, 2016

Oh, France! I have nothing to say, but silence mustn't be interpreted as indifference.

It’s raining tonight, real, serious rain. All my doorstep pots appreciate that far more than all the heavy watering cans I can carry out to them.

Here is a picture of the nasturtium pot. I think you can see how the flowers to the right, the first to open, are proper nasturtium flowers, and the ones to the left – and even more, the buds being held aloft from the leaves – are different, with the stems attached to the base of the flower. I no longer have the seed packet, alas. There was nothing at all in the earlier progress of the seedlings, or in the foliage, to make me suspect that they weren’t all common or garden nasturtiums.



One of the things I didn’t know about until I was thoroughly grown up was the way plants can be picked up and moved from one species to another – or even switched between genera? – as botanists currently think fit.  I think I thought it had all been fixed forever by Linnaeus. Not that I suspect anything of the sort is happening here. It’s just that I have been trying again, and failing again, to identify the cactuses in my little collection and you have never seen such a family of plants for reclassification. The experience leaves me edgy and suspicious.

As for knitting, again, there is little to report. I have reached the penultimate repeat of the edging on the third side (the penultimate side, indeed) of the Hansel shawl. I’m getting there. And I welcome your question, KayT, about what comes next.

The main idea is to return to the half-brioche sweater I am knitting for myself. But starting something new would be very pleasant, and could be invigorating. I am in need of invigoration. But what? My husband’s sweater, with the beautiful madtosh Tannehill? Or one of the alarmingly long list of other projects for which I have yarn and pattern carefully stashed together? Or – caution thrown to the winds – Lucy Hague’s “Uncia” pattern from the Haps book? It’s fun to think about such things.

The whole world must know by now about the sheriff in Dundee who, confronted by a road rage case in which the offender claimed to have been on her way to an LYS, told her to knit some things to be donated to a charity shop and bring them back to court in December. Otherwise, prison.

There is a good deal we are not being told here. Even an LYS doesn’t justify road rage. Maybe the sheriff didn’t entirely like the victim’s story? It would be nice if the Dundee Courier, which first broke the story, would assign a reporter to keep in touch with the accused and let us know how her knitting is getting on. I think I’d go for hats, in that situation.


I think (from Flipboard) that this item first ran in the Courier, and then got taken up in America, and has now been noticed by the serious London press here. 

9 comments:

  1. France (again) and now Turkey. It is a really astonishing world we live in - so many extraordinary and precipitous events seem to be piling up. It's hard to know what to think or do when we lurch from one calamity to another like this.

    At least there is knitting to ground us all.

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  2. Jean, when Linneaus originated the system of binomial (Genus species) scientific names for organisms, he certainly didn't have access to all the species in the world. He made a very good start, and it looked like it set scientists on a tidy path. But as soon as we look more closely we realize how difficult it can be to sort things out. Garden plants can be one of the (ahem) thorniest areas, because natural selection is vastly slower than the world's avid gardeners, all eager to establish their own variety for every plant in the nursery.

    Nowhere near all the earth's species have yet been described and named, even as many are disappearing and others just getting started, like may be happening on your doorstep. Part of the fun of science is that every question answered leaves new gaps on either side. I know that makes some folks nervous, but for an inquisitive mind it can be thrilling.

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  3. Nasturtiums can vary - like fuchsias. And they can pollinate, self seed & plant themselves where you least expect!! I enjoy them, like fuchsias, anywhere I need a boost of color. If you need a new project, choose the 'Uncia' - such a beautiful, structural pattern.

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    Replies
    1. Oh, the idea of fuschia self-seeding. I care barely keep them alive in a pot over the summer, here in so much chillier Minnesota. I do get of foxgloves at least.

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  4. well i missed the sheriff knitting story.. off to look for it...
    onward with your knitting, such a wealth of choices! as for news - its friday night and i am watching REAL TIME with Bill Maher -after a week filled with Cameron leaving May ascending, Nice being mowed down and tanks on bridges in Turkey. good g*d i need a vat of wine.

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  5. Anonymous11:46 AM

    Didn't anyone else notice Kate Davies on Woman's Hour and Radio2?
    Helen (anon)

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    1. Anonymous2:13 PM

      See my comment below for link to Kate Davies on Woman's Hour.
      Judith

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  6. I started the Uncia - I love Lucy Hague's patterns! it's entertaining to say the least - but not something I'd knit "on the side", esp. not after the first third. there are few stitches in the first part, but there are a lot of different chart symbols to be read - as I said entertaining for lace (and small cables) lovers, but nothing to knit in front of the tv! but don't feel put off - I am enjoying myself with it!

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  7. Anonymous2:11 PM

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07jqql8
    Link to the programme here. Enjoy.
    Judith

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