No Popemobile here, alas.

My husband wanted to come too. That meant leaving the house later than I had planned, and climbing the hill much more slowly. Even so, we got there on time – but the Pope got there early. We missed the whole thing. A bitter disappointment.

Mary Lou, the best I can do for the Grand Old Duke of York is the Wikipedia entry. I thought we knew who he was (George III’s second son Frederick, I guess) but apparently there are rival candidates.

Before getting back to the happier topic of knitting, I had better run through the rest of our London adventures, for the sake of completeness.

The Fakes show at the National Gallery was a bit of a disappointment, with slightly patronising labels. “Can you spot the difference?” sort of thing. We also saw the annual Portrait competition that day, around the corner at the Portrait Gallery; and – an unexpected treat – a little show of Frederick Cayley Robinson, upstairs at the National Gallery. Recommended.

The next day we polished off Sargent and the Sea at the Royal Academy. We expected to be bored, and were. They also have a little show of Flaxman’s illustrations to Homer. T’riffic. We skipped Tracey Emin. Then we wandered around the commercial galleries, which I always enjoy doing. Agnew’s new premises are a real come-down, as if they had moved into a council house; but the stock is still high-quality.

Friday was the V&A for the Raphael cartoons and tapestries, and that was exhilarating. The tapestries were interesting enough; it was the chance to look closely at those cartoons again which transformed the day. Then we went on to the latest Saatchi gallery, not far away. It is located in the old “Duke of York’s Headquarters” off Sloan Square. We thought of the 10,000 men – but I couldn’t even tell you which Duke of York had his headquarters there.

On Saturday Rachel took my husband to Postman’s Park while I had my Starmore day.

And on Sunday we went to see the dinosaurs at Crystal Palace. Wow! I was expecting a lone Tyrannosaurus in a field of patchy grass. What I got was this:


They were the first dinosaur sculptures in the world, and pre-date Darwin by several years. Modern scholars sneer at the reconstructions, needless to say. Three Wikipedia links in one post is unusual, but they deserve one. Here is Rachel with my husband:


The new VK arrived yesterday, brightening an otherwise rather sour day, and knitting proceeds well. I am past the half-way point on the Amedro shawl border, and near the first heel of Matt’s socks. Tomorrow I’ll talk about knitting.

I mean to walk up into central Edinburgh a bit later this morning, to see the Pope ride by in his Popemobile. If the crowds are intolerable, I’ll just come home again (like the Grand Old Duke of York) – I have no intention of climbing a sycamore tree. Even so, it will be interesting to see the numbers and mood of the people who are there.

The Pope (the old boy must be airborne as I write) will be in progress between Holyrood, where he will have been saying howdy do to the Queen, and Morningside, where he will have lunch with our local Cardinal Archbishop. I imagine that will be a low-key affair – rest stops have been built in to the itinerary, given the Pope’s age, and I suspect that is one of them. What would I give him for lunch, if I were the Cardinal’s housekeeper? I think I’d stick with Jamie Oliver’s tray-baked salmon with green beans, olives, anchovies & tomatoes.

As I composed myself for sleep on Sunday evening in London, thinking of various aspects of the following day’s journey to Edinburgh, it was pleasant to reflect that the Pope himself, way off there in Rome, was lying down with not entirely dissimilar thoughts.

Starmore

To begin with, read Shandy’s account of her Starmore class the day before mine.

And thank you, Shandy, for the reference to Starmore’s “Aran Knitting” which I have been re-perusing. In it, she specifically claims priority for unventing Celtic knitting – “Until its publication [“The Celtic Collection”, 1992] infinite Celtic cabling was not seen in knitting.” She said something of the sort in our lesson.

Lavold’s copyright is 1998 for "Viking Patterns for Knitting". She says something in the introduction about 15 years of toying with and working on the idea. As you say, Shandy, there was a lot of that sort of thing around at that time. Starmore clearly got into print first. There is no bibliography in Lavold, and no reference to Starmore that I can see.

Alice’s book – for those new to the subject – is a collection of sweater patterns, some of which have infinite Celtic cabling on them. Lavold’s book has some sweater patterns – good ones – and a lot more swatches and charts. She mentions in her introduction the identity of many Celtic interlaced patterns with Viking ones, and seems to imply that she thinks the Vikings may have picked up the idea from the Celts.

What is the source for your glorious throw, Shandy? I could scroll back and remind myself – I’ve admired it before.

I had thought already (before yesterday’s comments) that I must now have a go at the Lavold technique for starting a Celtic knot. She was very excited about having unvented it. I strongly suspect that you’re right, Maureen, and there isn’t much difference between the two. I feel sure, incidentally, that Lavold was working independently of Starmore, quite likely without any knowledge of “The Celtic Collection”, especially given the difference of language.