We’re back. It was tough. No knitting content today.

It was spring in Edinburgh when we left on Tuesday (colder now) –but still deep midwinter in Strathardle. We got there in good order, with some light to spare.

We couldn’t open first one and then the other of the gates across our driveway – they were held shut by frozen lumps of mud. We vaulted over the gates (=I climbed heavily over) and chipped away at the ice with the trowel we carry in the car for such purposes.

We got down to the house eventually, and I turned the water on. I came back from doing that pleased to hear the sound of water running. The ends of two pipes had separated from each other in the kitchen, unnoticed until too late. Water was pumping out onto the kitchen floor. We turned it off again, mopped up, and called for help. If you have any problem requiring emergency out-of-hours assistance, you’re far better off in the back of beyond.

Eric Ogilvie came at once from the village and stuck the pipes back together. We turned the water on and all seemed well. Then Mr Ogilvie and I went upstairs to look at the hot water system and when we got back to the kitchen another leak had sprung from a totally different source and was haemorrhaging water all over everywhere, far worse than before. So we turned the water off again and he fixed that one and my husband and I spent the rest of the evening mopping and wiping and rescuing things from the floor-level cupboards and trying to dry the cupboards themselves.

It was all rather dreadful, the more so because my husband can never employ the gallows humour which could make a disaster, if not exactly fun, at least an adventure. He just gets crosser. I think I remarked something of the same after the recent power cut in our bit of Edinburgh.

The experience took a lot out of both of us. The weather was too inhospitable for much serious outdoor activity anyway. The ground was frozen solid – no hope of lifting Jerusalem artichokes. There were patches of ice everywhere, and larger patches of snow which had started to thaw and then frozen again, fully as dangerous as ice. I fell twice, going out to look at my vegetables the next morning. No ill effects – maybe my once-a-week osteoporosis pills are working, maybe it’s safer to fall backwards onto one’s well-padded bottom, as I did, rather than forwards or sideways.

The deer have had the kale, alas, and also have eaten my beloved bunching onions, although I think they will recover. I did get my fruit hedge pruned (blackcurrents, redcurrents, gooseberries).

Then we found that the byre door was frozen shut. The same sort of problem as previously with the gates, except that this time there was no way to get behind the door to see what was wrong. And our firewood is kept in the byre.

We solved that one, just as light was fading and hope almost extinguished, by using a funnel to pour kettles-full of boiling water through fissures in the door. My husband’s inspiration, my execution.

I worried, for the first time ever, about how much longer we are going to be able to go on Strathardle’ing. All will seem better when the weather eases.

I didn’t even cast on Joe’s socks. I’ll do that this afternoon, when I accompany my husband to a boring routine appt at the Royal Infirmary respiratory dept where they are unable to help relieve his breathlessness.

Sorry chaps. All is well. Our friends from Birmingham were here over the weekend, and although they weren’t required to sleep on the floor of my computer room, they did deserve some breakfast. Once that blogging hour is gone, the day dissolves.

R., the husband, has Parkinson’s. They told us when they were last here, perhaps a year and a half ago. There was nothing to notice, if they hadn’t mentioned it. Now, his life-long fitness has tipped slightly towards too-thin, speech is slightly slow, hands tremble. It’s a bugger. Sunday was his 70th birthday – they had come to celebrate with their son and his family, who live in a tiny house with no spare bedroom. I hadn’t known in advance, but got him a silly birthday card and a lottery scratch card in Tesco’s. He won £20.

Alexander is coming over from Loch Fyne today to see his Aunt C. Telephone reports from our niece last week were at least, no-worse.

Today we are going to Strathardle. We should we back by Sunday. I am a bit apprehensive – can I do it? have I fully recovered my pre-solstice pep, such as it was? And, did the severe cold affect our water supply? I’ll be fine this evening, with the water on and the fire lit and knitting in hand – I think I’ll start Joe’s 21st-birthday socks. But just at the moment it seems a long way from here to there.

Knitting

Here’s the cowl, being blocked. It’s not as severely stretched as I usually do lace – I was working with the pattern to get the dimensions more or less right. The bottom edge and the overall height are fine. The top edge is a bit longer than specified.

And here’s Round-the-Bend. I am, as you see, turning the bottom front corner. I find the mitred squares puzzling, even as I sit there doing them. The next one must be started as soon as this is finished. But started from which end of the row? I think I’ve worked it out (I got it wrong on the current square, and had to rip a few rows) and should be fluent by the time I finish. The fact that I am knitting top-down and will soon be knitting bottom-up does nothing to relieve confusion.

It’s going to be a very peculiar-looking object, especially with those sleeves.

My sister wrote to say that the Wurm Hat, her Christmas present, has stretched after being out in a blizzard. It shouldn’t – it’s trustworthy sock wool. I think that essentially means that it’s too big; I’ll make a note on the pattern.

And she sent me this link to inspire me to knit her one of those. I thought I knew it all, but that’s a revelation. There are plenty of patterns on Ravelry, although none I liked as well as the cover pattern on the book. We shall see.

Alexander has contributed a recipe for Thai scallops – this is about knitting, in the end; hang on – to a local recipe book called “Mother’s Messages”. We’ve tried it, and it’s good. There are some other nice things in the book, too. You can order a copy from their website.

There is a reference on page 36 to “Lady Gainford”, indeed an old recipe of hers. I am sure that must be Lady Veronica Gainford of Lochgilphead, who wrote “Designs for Knitting Kilt Hose and Knickerbocker Stockings”, reprinted by the Schoolhouse although I don’t know if it’s still current.

I got my copy out to check details. I keep cuttings there of gents in kilt hose, mostly Prince Charles, but among them is this gem, with which I’ll leave you.

Frangipani, of course. Thank you, Tamar. I knit Ketki a gansey of it a couple of years ago, in Herring Girl Pink:

I had lots left over, I could therefore even swatch, except that I’ve given it away to the charity knitters in Alyth as part of the current stash-purging exercise. Goes to show. I’ve got a kind of dark-red idea hanging over this project, and they do a “claret” which fits the dream nicely. Although “damson” is also tempting.

Rug-making

JeanfromCornwall, I vividly remember Readicut. I am the Blind Follower par excellence, and I loved the idea of the printed canvas and the bits of yarn ready-cut into the right lengths. I gave Rachel a kit for Christmas once, when she was about 12, therefore in about 1970. On New Year’s Eve, in whatever year it was, my husband was off somewhere and I and the children remained at Burnside, the house pictured in the sidebar. (I can’t imagine where he could have been – he was never a reveller, and in those days Scotland closed down for four or five days at the New Year. But he was absent, with the car.)

We sat around the fire, and Rachel worked on the Readicut kit. She gave a vigorous tug and got the latch stuck up her nose. It sounds funny. It could have been rather serious.

We walked along the Bumpy Road (in pitch darkness, of course) to the nurse’s house. She was getting ready for her night out, but fortunately was still at home, and even more fortunately was able to dislodge the latch without damage.

But that was the end of rug-making forever, as far as we were concerned.

Knitting

Meanwhile I’ve finished the cowl – pic as soon as I’ve got it blocked.

And resumed Round-the-Bend. Here it is, superimposed on a favourite (store-boughten) jacket. The current instruction is to knit until I am 11” short of the desired length – so there’s quite a way to go. I thought of adding a few rows of something else, after the dark stripe and even though I hadn’t done a corresponding something-else on the sleeve. But decided not to. “When in doubt, leave it out”, is a sound principle of design.

I heard no more from Morningside yesterday. Emily, yes, my sister-in-law is somehow or other signed up for the Marie Curie hospice in the south of the city, and a hospice nurse visits regularly. I have urged my niece to draw her aside, this week, and try to talk about the Larger Picture, and the possibility of respite care. But my hopes, for the moment, are pinned on domestic help. C. will surely be happier and more comfortable at home, close to her daughter.

The other daughter, F., the energetic Glasgow businesswoman, said in a message to me yesterday “I am very concerned that rather than getting the best out of what time she has with Mum [my sister] is taking on too much”. Taking on too much, perhaps, but she’s there on the spot, and somebody’s got to do it. But with F. on the job, I hope help will soon be arranged.

I have embarrassingly little knitting to report. I’m still a couple of rows short of finishing the cowl. Part of the trouble has been “Wait for Me”, the dowager Duchess of Devonshire’s autobiography, which I have just acquired as a belated Christmas present. It sparkles on every page. She is the youngest, and now the only survivor, of the famous Mitford sisters, a very remarkable crew.

When she was a debutant, in the late 30’s: “Wool shops selling a kaleidoscope of coloured skeins from Sirdar and Paton & Baldwin were a feature of every London street; there were patterns and wool for rug-making and darning, and for knitting everything under the sun, including dogs’ coats, which I knitted for my whippet Studley.”

I remember wool shops, much like that, from the 50’s. Not the modern palaces of pleasure, but small, functional shops serving a firm, useful purpose – baby clothes and socks and cardigans. Every serious shopping street would have at least one such place. Whatever you wanted to knit, you could be sure of finding a leaflet for it, as she says. “Rug-making” puzzles me – maybe in London. Books and magazines were nowhere to be seen, in such shops, and indeed few existed, except for my beloved VKB.

I did a wee bit of googling this morning in furtherance of my vague travelling-stitch ideas. Rowan “Calmer” turns out to be cotton and acrylic – no wool. It makes Wendy’s Aran even more extraordinary – link yesterday – but completely rules it out, for me. And Rowan’s Extra-Fine Merino DK shows every sign of having been discontinued.

I will not panic. That’s how stashes get too big. I’m sure I can find it somewhere on eBay, if I decide to go on down that path. I am sure I can find something with lots of wool in it and good stitch definition, if I decide to look elsewhere.

Of course I can.

Thanks for the suggestions yesterday. I am pressing our niece hard to get in touch with a domestic agency to see if they have Mary Poppins on their books – someone who would, exactly as you say, Beverly, shop and cook and do some laundry as well as clean. C.’s diet is very limited – the cooking isn’t demanding. Someone to be there to serve it attractively and coax C. to eat and maybe to laugh.

I can’t do much about this myself, except offer to fund it. I have involved another niece, though – F., who lives in Glasgow. She has a stern, practical bent and agrees that her sister needs help.

I wonder if the authorities are congratulating themselves on enabling C. to live alone – technically, that’s what she’s doing, although it entirely depends on her daughter.

Knitting

Nearly there – the cowl has seven rows to go. The new skein has been wound and joined in.

Meg, I do have “Twisted-Stitch Knitting” – and the same thing over again, in German. When I went to Camp Stitches in ’99 – just the other day – I did a class with Candace Strick on the subject, and she told us about those books. That was before there was a translation, when you needed the three little volumes in German. She said that one of her sons was going to Europe that summer, with strict instructions to come back with them.

She didn’t look old enough to have a son who could be allowed to go to Europe on his own, but apart from that – how fast things have changed! Now one has but to sit in one’s untidy study and click! and the world comes.

Shandy, thanks for the pointer to Wendy’s twisted-stitch Aran. Wow! I have at least added Rowan “Calmer” to my brief notes on this topic. The other contender is Rowan Extra-Fine Merino DK. And Wendy’s wonderful sweater rather confirms my impression that the way to go is to choose a shape, choose a yarn, find some stitches, and swatch.

Gardening

Fishwife, I’m sure you’re right that those bricks in yesterday’s pictures are to house beneficial insects. C. is a passionate gardener, and very concerned about hedgehogs and toads and frogs and such. I tend to regard nature with a more sceptical eye – it’s out to get me, and my job is to beat it back.

As so often in life, the Big Day came and went with no change. The dr came and decided that things can go on as they are, with a bit of additional input from the current carers. The trouble is, it’s our niece who needs the “respite”. It is she who is dealing with her mother’s depression and fear, as well as cleaning and shopping and cooking. And she has a job and a house of her own.

I got the tax done and filed on-line. It was great, waking up this morning and hearing the radio tell me the date, and not thinking, oh-my-God, so-much-of-January-gone-already.

We were promised a nice rebate, which figures, because income from savings-and-investments was markedly down in 2009-10. I spoke to Alexander later in the morning – he says he hasn’t done their tax yet, and always leaves it until now. “There’s nothing else to do in January.” I have never been able to persuade him, or Rachel’s husband Ed, either, come to that, of the delights of spending January with the seed catalogues. Both grow much better vegetables than I do.

Maybe that rebate, when it arrives, should be the occasion for buying the yarn for the stitch-pattern-something which keeps bubbling on a mental back burner. But first I need to settle on a pattern and be filled with enthusiasm. I did a search on “Bavarian travelling stitch” on Ravelry just now, and found some nice things – but they’re all socks. My new self-rule on yarn is that I can buy as much as I want, whenever – but only when I know what I want to do with it, and am pretty well ready to cast on.

Meg's approach in "Knitting" must be the way to proceed -- choose a shape first, and a yarn, then decorate with stitches.

Meanwhile the cowl progresses – two more sessions should finish it off, slightly delayed by the need to wind another skein of Koigu. It is extraordinary how rarely I have actually finished off a ball of yarn during this whole virtuous 14 months of nibbling at the stash.

And better yet, perhaps, I like the Round-the-Bend jacket better and better as I see it out of the corner of the eye, lying neglected. The stripey sleeves are still a bit much, but they’ll probably do.

My niece sent me these pictures of the gnomes yesterday:



I don't know what that thing is with the bricks.

Our niece phoned yesterday to say that C. has had a ropey few days – no exciting new symptom, just tremendous fatigue, no appetite, some nausea, some abdominal discomfort. They called on NHS 24 – the nights-and-weekends emergency service. A nice young dr came who thought “respite care” in a hospice was now necessary, so today’s energies will be devoted to achieving that. It has to be done through the GP. We should hear more this evening.

So not much knitting, somehow. I’ve moved on to the smaller-needle section of the cowl and it is going smoothly.

Today I hope to file the income tax.

Fuzzarelly, thank you for the tips (comment yesterday) about the language blogs – I haven’t been reading anything like that. Could be the spring tonic I need. I’ve now subscribed to both.

Rachel has sent an explanation of the Miliband picture which appeared here yesterday: Joe had just finished some exams, and since everybody else was still sitting them, and not much else was happening in Nottingham, he came home for a few days. Ketki was working in London last week, and Alexander and the boys came along – it gave him a chance to see the London Art Fair, which he doesn’t like to miss.

And as for Mr. Miliband, he happened to be passing through Victoria Station as Joe and the Little Boys were on their way to the Natural History Museum. Rachel says that Joe says he was very nice, and particularly nice with the Little Boys. It is good to know that our leaders are still so accessible. Joe refers to him as "Ed".

A good evening with the cowl yesterday. Lisa, I am using #3 needles (conveniently, 3mm) as recommended on the Koigu label. I am just about at the point where the pattern says to go down a needle size. I’ll try 2.5mm and see if it’s comfortable – otherwise go on as I am. Yes, I did add an extra pattern repeat width-wise, as Shandy suggested. She says that she has done the cowl at least once leaving out the final section with the smaller needles which I am about to embark on. I’m going to keep it in, at least this time.

Hot Cross Buns

Gretchen, I was so sorry to hear that you had a bad, or dull, Hot Cross Bun. They are delicious, and if you were in Britain I would say, try Tesco’s or Marks and Spencer. Eat slightly warm, with butter melting in. But – at least in this house – only in Holy Week.

Suzanne, I was interested to hear that Carnival is already underway in New Orleans. You’ll have a nice long one, this year. I hate – this is absurd, but I do – the generalised use of the word, as in “Notting Hill Carnival”. What’s wrong with “Festival”? “Carnival” means goodbye-to-meat and according to me should only be used of a pre-Lenten beano, however prolonged. I am glad to know about "Le Mardi", too.

General

A week ago today I had to leave my husband at home when I went to Mass because we were encased in ice. There has been a prodigious thaw, and we are beginning to think of Strathardle, the more so as I at last feel that my New Year’s flu has finally fled the field. I am making great strides with the seed order, but there are one or two decisions that must be postponed until I read my notes again – and see whether the kale has survived. My pathetic netting will have collapsed under the weight of snow, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still some kale underneath.

I have ambitious hopes for brassica-growing if it can be got through the deer season.

The weather forecast is better for this week than for next, but old friends are coming to see us here next weekend, and I’ve got to file the income tax, so it looks as if we’ll have to wait.

I got my brain-age down to 29 yesterday – achieved a six’er by good luck as much as good management. Practice does help. There I think I’ll leave it.

Rachel forwarded this picture to me yesterday, without comment. The man on the right with the slightly glassy-eyed smile is her son Joe, the grandson who will turn 21 in the summer and therefore needs a pair of socks to mark the occasion. The little boys are the Little Boys – Ketki’s and Alexander’s sons, James-the-Younger and Thomas-the-Younger. The man on the left is Ed Miliband, Leader of the Labour Party.



Joe is supposed to be in Nottingham, in his penultimate term at the university there. The Little Boys are supposed to be in school at Strachur, on the shore of Loch Fyne. Mr. Miliband is supposed to be leading the Labour Party. Where on earth are they? A London tube station under reconstruction? Is Mr. Miliband really that much taller than Joe? Many questions remain to be answered.

I got my husband to his appt yesterday, but the excitement pretty well finished both of us for the day. Apart from anything else, the sun came out just as we were leaving. A friend in K*rkmichael told me once that a baseball cap helps a lot with low winter sun, and I now always keep one to hand in the car. It does help, but it’s still a nightmare. This year, I will try to pay enough attention to decide when in the year the sun is high enough that one can cheerfully drive south on a bright day. Somewhere around Groundhog Day?

On the way back, I stopped at Tesco where I found the first daffodils of the year:



and also the first Hot Cross Buns, which I eschewed. Easter is late this year – Lent doesn’t even start until March. You can tell, because the February issues of the food magazines, now on sale, don’t mention pancakes.

Knitting

I thought I had mastered the cowl, and was smugly composing a little paragraph in my head for today’s blog all about EZ’s brilliant injunction, Look at your knitting.

And then I found I had completely messed up a row, by omitting the series of decreases which should have brought the latest ribbed scallop to a close. I came within inches of abandoning the whole thing – I had gone back through the whole wrong-side row without noticing the mistakes, so there was nothing for it but to pull the needle out and take out two rows and then try to recover.


But I’ve done it, and the crisis now seems invisible, at least to my fond eye. I’m about to start the next offset shell pattern.

Non-knit

Thank you for your congratulations on my printer-installation. I’ve always had to forge forward without help – I am my husband’s technical support. In a real crisis – getting on-line for the first time, in the mid-90’s, completely defeated me – I have to wait until a son comes to visit.

Tamar, that’s a simple and brilliant idea, finding someone who can use the old ink cartridges. I’ll do it.

http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/ is useless on left-over haggis, but a straightforward Google search on that phrase produced several promising ideas.

Shan, I am seriously impressed by your 23-year-old brain. You have every right to be proud. I can do three numbers or four, and sometimes five. You must be able to do six, at least sometimes. Gosh. (Rules and link in yesterday’s post.)

The printer arrived in good time yesterday. I spent the rest of the morning installing it – not that there was any difficulty, nor that the instructions were less than pellucid, just that I am slow and clumsy and, in this case, desperately anxious not to break off any Little Plastic Bits. It is a very grand, updated model of the one I had before, and I think they have redesigned the ink-carriage so that there is less danger of breaking off bits when you insert a cartridge. And so that the expensive cartridges saved from the old printer, won’t fit.

I bought the Christopher hat pattern, as planned. I feel ever so much better for having a printer, as if re-connected to the world.

The cowl progresses. I have moved on to a near-repeat, offset, and can now, at least sometimes, learn a row at the beginning and then not have to peer at the pattern as I knit. I could regularly do that with the Princess border, where the pattern repeats were something like 48 stitches but everything was logical and geometrical.

I am at that dreary stage where the more I knit, the more it stays the same size.

Today’s excitement is getting my husband across the city to the Royal Infirmary to what amounts, for him, to an early appointment with the Respiratory department. At least I won’t have to drive due south into the low winter sun as I did when taking him to see C. on Tuesday. (Because today is grey.) I had better go get on with that.

Two from Helen:

1) http://flashfabrica.com/f_learning/brain/brain.html

Procedure of this Game:
1. Touch 'start'
2. Wait for 3, 2, 1.
3. Memorize the numbers’ position on the screen, then click the circle from the smallest number to the biggest number.
4. At the end of game, computer will tell you how old your brain is.

I’m somewhere in my 30’s. Helen says her early-teenaged, computer-savvy sons are about the same. Perhaps you have to be Bill Gates to have a 25-year-old brain.

2) http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/. It’s supposed to produce recipes for leftovers. It’s down for maintenance, it says, until later this morning, when I will try it on haggis.

Knitting

I’m getting on with the cowl, and enjoying it, but still finding it tough going. The decreases and increases are not always paired, to begin with – sometimes to the extent that the stitch count has changed by the end of the row. And one is not just lace-ing on a garter stitch or st st background: knits and purls have also to be considered.

(It looks much nicer than that -- early-morning flash photography doesn't come anywhere near doing it justice.)

At least I’m grown-up enough now to take hold of a problem in lace and shake it like a dog with a rat. I can remember – embarrassingly recently in the history of things – when I would realize I had gone wrong and think, well, OK, it’ll be right from here on. Now I can at least discover a missing YO, which is easily replaced in the next row, or a stitch-too-many, which can be inconspicuously decreased if you do it in the right place.

And knitting with Koigu is wonderful.

The printer is meant to be delivered today – pinning me to the spot, until it turns up. If all goes well, perhaps I’ll initiate it into its new responsibilities by downloading the Christopher hat pattern.

My husband had a good visit with C. yesterday, although he was clearly distressed by her frailness.

When we saw her in hospital, three days after surgery, still attached to the NHS by more tubes than one would have thought possible, the conversation turned to Christmas and I said, for a reason completely forgotten, “We’ll give you a garden gnome, then". She said, with what sounded like real enthusiasm, that she would love a gnome.

So I got her one – a pair, in fact. Yesterday they were finally delivered. She rang up, shortly after my husband got back, to see if he was safely home – he is not often allowed to wander around the city by himself these days – and to thank me. She has never been any good at sounding enthusiastic about something she doesn’t like, and is far too weak to attempt it now. She was clearly delighted.

(James and – especially – Cathy had pre-empted the obvious present by giving her an unbelievably beautiful yak’s-wool-and-silk wrap of a deep, saturated blue.)

I discovered in the course of my research that gnomes are available in much greater variety in the US, including presidential gnomes. If I were Theo and Jenni, I might think it fun to start collecting all the presidential gnomes of one’s married life.

On-going

The plumber (we love him) has solved the problem. He thinks the cold loosened the debris of ages from the inside of the down-pipe which then all fell down to the bottom.

I’ve got the income tax pretty well ready to file, AND I have finally ordered a new printer. Alexander is right – it cost scarcely more than it would have cost to get a Man In to shake his head at the old one. It should be here by Monday and meanwhile, I think, I’ll let the income tax marinate, which is often good for it.

Knitting

I’ve started the cowl, and am enjoying it as expected. There should be enough for a pic tomorrow. I was very tired last night and made heavy weather of it. I should pick up speed today.

Once I have a printer, I can give real thought to the Christopher hat.

Thanks for the Koolhaas info, Mel. It fits – in the FT article, the Seattle Public Library was top of the list of his achievements. He sounded like a much less relaxed and congenial lunch guest than Bill Gates, although his food choices were equally abstemious.

Barbara, HALFPINT is something like Have a Lovely Future Project – I’ve No Time. I probably have a bit of that wrong, but there’s the general idea.

On-going sagas

The bathtub didn’t empty quite as normal yesterday, but exited altogether much more promptly than it has in recent days. However, some hours later, my husband put his head out of the bathroom window and discovered water pouring down the side of the building – more water, it seemed, than we had used during the morning. Our dear downstairs neighbours had placed a basin to catch it which was overflowing helplessly.

So today a plumber is coming.

And today I must get my husband across the city to see his sister. She tends to flag in the afternoon, and he is not an easy man to get started in the morning. If they are ever to meet at all, fairly strenuous measures are necessary from me.

I got a letter from the Income Tax yesterday, reminding me of the approaching deadline, as if I could forget. I have never been late enough before to qualify for one of those.

Our soap opera is back on television and yesterday I went to Waitrose (still somewhat under-stocked) and our fishmonger will re-open this week, today or tomorrow. (Little is landed the first week of the year, and it’s very expensive – he says it pays him to stay home.) Life is gradually resuming.

Knitting

The cowl pattern is here!

My first decision this morning, once on my feet and before I was dressed, was to knit a Koigu cowl. This is the collection:


There’s enough there for half-a-dozen Toreadors with perhaps an Oriental Jacket for the leftovers. I can spare a skein or two.

And here is the current state of Round-the-Bend. There now follows a lengthy passage of garter st before the lower square. The dark stripes are Matt’s socks – I bought two 100 gr skeins that day, because normally I use slightly more than 100 gr on a full-scale pair of men’s socks, and I didn’t feel I knew Matt well enough for dizzy toes out of the odd-ball bag, which is what I’ll do for Joe.

But the yarn, in fact, must go slightly further than my usual sock yarns, because I had a full skein and a tiny oddball left over. I can't, at the moment, remember its name -- it's wonderful stuff. (Notice those its's.)

We had a power cut yesterday evening, for an hour and a half. Great fun, except for my husband’s bad temper – WHY don’t we have any baked beans? It was just our bit of Drummond Place, and not all of that, but enough that a little bunch of neighbours congregated on the icy pavement, each happy to discover that they weren’t the only ones affected.

It cut badly into knitting time, however. I think I’ll probably go ahead and finish the current square, and perhaps even start the dark stripe, even if the cowl pattern turns up as expected today.

It made me wonder what domestic work must have been like in the centuries, nay millennia, before houses were lit by gas or electricity. Reality TV can’t begin to address the question because they need so much electricity for their cameras. It’s all very well nearer the equator, but up here there are lots and lots of hours of darkness from November through February, too many to spend them all in inactivity.

I sort of get the impression in Jane Austin that people ate a very substantial breakfast and then another big meal towards the end of the afternoon and finally a modest supper, easier to throw together in the dark, towards bedtime.

Miscellaneous

“Lunch with the FT” at the weekend was with the architect Koolhaas. I had never heard the name, except as a knitting pattern. Why did Jared call it that? do we know? Helen C.K.S. has been attempting it lately. I knit it for Rachel once, in cashmere Koigu, and remember it as toilsome. Helen also has a link to a hat named Christopher (Ravelry link) by which I – like her – am immediately and totally captivated.

I have added the Koigu Toreador Jacket to my wish list – definitely, at least for the moment. I don’t have much of any one colourway, but I think I’ll be fine, arranging things into colour groups. Is there an acronym for a project at that stage? It’s better than a HALFPINT, but less than a UFO.

I’m off to have a bath. Report tomorrow, insh’Allah.

No more snow, but it has turned colder and is now icy underfoot – just when the city people have finished sweeping up all the grit from last time. When I opened the door to go out shopping yesterday, I found a neighbour on the doorstep, shovelling away our snow.

My husband is going to see his sister on Tuesday. She sounds weak, and is suffering badly from fatigue. She has been in bed for a few days with a chest infection, which doesn’t help. Our niece phoned in the afternoon and brought me up to date, but there is little to add. C. isn’t gaining strength as we had all hoped, but she’s not losing much ground either. She says herself that it’s like the Phoney War – those months between September, 1939, and May, 1940, when Britain was at war with Germany but nothing much seemed to be happening.

She’s old enough to remember it. It seemed to me rather a good analogy.

As for knitting, the cowl pattern didn’t arrive, although Shandy had it in the post before midday on Friday. She has posted some pics on her own blog of completed cowls, to make me all the more impatient.

But there was nothing to do but press on with Round-the-Bend.

I got to the point where I had short-rowed the first square down to three inches-worth of stitches. The next instruction was to cast off those three inches, then cast on four inches-worth to replace them, and then “complete the corner”. Did that mean, go on short-rowing on the new stitches to the end? Or turn around now and go back?

It wasn’t convenient to have another look at the DVD just then, so I trial’d-and-error’d. The first hypothesis soon proved to be wrong. The second is working fine. There is a little hole in the corner between the cast-off stitches and the new ones – it looks almost like an intentional completion of the row of little holes on my unwrapped short rows.

I spent a little time yesterday with the books that might suggest the next project, in my current fairly desperate stage of stash-busting: “Swing, Swagger, Drape”; Sally Melville’s “Styles”; and the Koigu “Painter’s Palette” book. Am I brave enough to tackle the Koigu toreador jacket? I really ought to do something with that treasure chest of beautiful yarn.

I made a bit more progress with the income tax. The great thing is to keep at it. I’m going to need a printer before the end of the month, so I might as well get cracking on that.

Grammar

What my mother taught me to do, in examples like the ones I gave the other day, was remove the who-or-whom clause from its context and turn it into a sentence on its own. “I knew he was in charge…” “He”, not “him”, therefore “who” not “whom” in “The man who I knew was in charge…” Likewise “him”, not “he”, in “I suspected him to be in charge…” therefore “whom” not “who” in “The man whom I suspected to be in charge…”

I think one could construct a rule if one exerted oneself, in fact I think Tamar has pretty well done so, but meanwhile one has a fairly straightforward and useful tool to apply.

Snow.

Not very cold snow, I don’t think. Footprints on the pavement look slushy. But Edinburgh airport is closed. We’ve had a pleasant thaw since the night of Boxing Day, and had begun to regard that state as the norm.

I felt a bit better yesterday, both knitting-wise and health-wise. I’m pretty sure you’re right, Beverly, that the two are related. I went on with Round-the-Bend and am now mitering the first big square. I’s going to be a very colourful object, and even in the garter stitch passages remains rather flabby for a jacket – but it’s fun again.


I'm doing the mitre without wrapping -- there'll be a little line of holes, just visible at the lower end of the active knitting. I've also included an unwound skein of the Araucania Multi I find I have so much of. I haven't decided whether to make the body of the jacket entirely of it, or to add even more excitement with stripes of this and that.

Meanwhile, however, kind Shandy has sent me the pattern for the Eleanor cowl. If our intrepid postwoman manages to struggle through the drifts with it today, I will switch WIPs at once. I am sure it is just the tonic I need.

And I poured another bottle of Mr. Muscle down the bathtub drain, with results unknown. There’s still a hamper-full of left-over Christmas bed linen, but we’ve got clean clothes (our requirements are modest) and can manage without baths for a day or two longer. Fishwife, my husband has been poking down the drain with one of those flexible things you put through the hem of a lace curtain, bringing up black gritty detritus. I wonder if I have a crochet hook long enough to emulate your procedure?

But our bathroom is two storeys up, and I have reason to think that the obstruction is about halfway down, so it might not help.

I am working on our Income Tax for 2009-10, which must be filed by the end of the month. I have never, ever, ever left it so late before, and have resolved never to do so again. At least I learned this year that if it isn’t done by the end of October, it won’t be done until January. Christmas takes over. On the other hand, I saw a note in the paper the other day to the effect that 3000 people filed on-line on Christmas Day. What a depressing thought!

I am going to phone C. this morning to see if I can book my husband in for a visit next week. We haven’t had any news since Rachel and Ed called on her on the 27th. I must stay away until my lungs are completely sound.

On-going

I’m still not well, and getting rather tired of it. I spent some of yesterday back in bed, this time with the knitting magazines.

Yesterday’s washing machine experiment went better – there was a bit of back-up into the bath when the final rinse water was expelled, but it soon drained away. Whereas the day before, the bath had been about one-third full, and it didn’t drain. I think I may venture on one more bottle of Mr Muscle.

I fear you may be right about hair, Tamar. Dreadful stuff. Our granddaughter Rachel-the-Younger washes her hair every day (in the bath). We have a little sieve thing to fit over the drain, an obsession of my husband’s, but I’m not at all sure it was in use. Hair has a dreadful permanence.

No luck with knitting. I can’t remember being in such a state before. Your suggestion is perfect, Shandy – the Eleanor cowl. The trouble is, I haven’t done anything in all this time about replacing the printer which I have rendered unusable by breaking off a Little Plastic Piece. I really must. Why not today, Jean?

The cowl is so perfect, I might even try to copy out the first part of the chart for the lace. Those frost patterns are such fun to knit.

Last night I went back through my little collection of ideas for swing jackets, and cast on one designed for sock yarn. Trouble is, it was designed for heavy sock yarn. As always, when you need one, there was no schematic. I knit enough to figure out how it worked; probably enough to re-size for finer yarn, but I’m not much inspired to go on.

In fact, I think I’ll probably go back to Round-the-Bend, at least long enough to see whether I like it better once I get started on the garter st parts. They will be solider and more jacket-like.

Joan, thank you for your very kind comment. I reflected, as I walked about basking in it, that my husband has a justifiably low opinion of me in almost every aspect of life, but he defers absolutely on English usage. I learned most of it from my mother, who taught me to distinguish “who” and “whom”, for instance, in such phrases as “The man who I knew was in charge…” as distinct from “The man whom I suspected to be in charge….” Quite educated writers in this country often get that one wrong – putting “whom” for “who” in the first example. I’ve even seen it wrong in the Economist.

I’m good on relationships, too, and can spot a second cousin once removed without difficulty.

Ongoing sagas

I spent all day yesterday on my feet – as opposed to, in bed with the seed catalogues. And lived to tell the tale. But still not entirely well.

Mr. Muscle has not solved the bathtub problem – the washing machine did back up into it. As hoped, however, I wound up with one more load of clean wash. We bought another bottle of something similar to Mr. M. at Poundland (a favourite haunt of my husband’s), baled the bath out this time, and poured it down. Results as yet unknown.

I reached the gusset of the Round-the-Bend sleeve – and have hit the buffers, mentally.

The pattern is essentially eight large mitred squares, four front and four back, with a garter stitch passage in the middle to add length. And sleeves. I realised yesterday that I’ve got enough (I think) of an Araucania Multi in greens and browns to knit the whole body. We’d have a picture of the yarn, if I weren’t short of time this morning.

In that case, it would be best to have the sleeves uniformly dark. Do I have enough darks for that?

Having got that far, I have sort of fallen apart. Perhaps I will have to cast on Joe’s socks tonight, to provide some thinking space. Forget the whole thing and make another ASJ? I’ve even trawled back through my January 1 Project Lists for earlier years, to see if I could find any unknit ideas that grab me now. Could the February Lady Sweater be translated into lighter yarns (it’s meant for worsted)?

I am in the grip of despair, knitting-wise.

And a new one

The President has nominated my niece-in-law Jenni as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of the Treasury. That’s Theo’s wife, ever since the wedding I went to last July. Now she’ll have to have a hearing.

I continue to improve, health-wise.

Christmas

See Kristie’s blog post of January 2 for an account of a happy Christmas party in which “major bonus points were awarded because not a single appliance complained or died during the festivities.” She had previously posted an hilarious series of accounts of the disasters of Christmas Past.

Our appliances held up, more or less, but the bath stopped emptying, and then the washing machine and the bathroom basin starting backing up into it.

We thought, at first, that the down pipe must be frozen. But by yesterday the thaw had lasted for a week and the bathtub was, if anything, worse. The prospect of calling in an expensive Man loomed near. I went all the way to the supermarket yesterday – not much use; they haven’t had any deliveries to speak of, and it’s like shopping in one’s own larder. But I bought something called Mr. Muscle, for clearing drains.

My husband was sceptical, and cross. That was for clearing kitchen drains, he said, blocked by congealed fat. I poured it in anyway – it’s a sort of heavy gel which sank through the standing water and down the drain.

By the time we had finished lunch, the bathtub was empty. I am hopeful. We left it untouched for the rest of the day. This morning, I have flushed it with hot water, as instructed. I mean to test it by running the washing machine. Even if it’s still blocked, that’ll give me one more load of clean clothes.

Knitting

I think I’ve finished the st st part of the first Round-the-Bend sleeve, and am ready to begin the garter stitch gusset. I’ve had another look at that passage in the DVD, and have learned a thing or two.

And I got out some possible sock yarns for Joe’s coming-of-age pair. Depressing, after a year of such yarnly virtue, to see how much of it there is. This isn't all, of course -- just the ones I thought possible for Joe. I think I will go for something pretty sober, perhaps the brown, lower left. It's called "Trekking XXL" for some reason.

Every year around this time I make a list of what I might knit in the year to come – not resolutions, by any means, or even ambitions – just a list of HALFPINTS from the back of my mind. Usually the list is too long for any year to encompass, but this time it’s embarrassingly short: finish Round-the-Bend, Joe’s socks, and something with a stitch pattern in purpose-bought yarn: travelling stitch or Celtic knots (for Starmore) or something from the Japanese stitch dictionary or even good old Aran.

I am hoping that the new EZ book when it appears will help settle the matter. The picture they are showing as the mock cover (second item down) is really rather tempting. I like that neck.

I am somewhat better, but a chesty cough remains. I had pneumonia once, decades ago, and remain wary and respectful of lungs. I am well enough for essential shopping and cooking, and am otherwise spending as much time as possible in bed with the seed catalogues. Delicious! I am determined, this year: (a) to have salad stuff in production in August, when people are there to eat it; and (b) to try a number of beetroots, to see if I can find one that suits.

Meanwhile, C. is living at home. My husband and all of our children, separately, have been to see her, and all report that they were surprised how well she seems. We are sure she is comfortable, and not taking anything for pain. She is very frail (and the well-ness will be, in part at least, a conscious effort for the sake of the visitor). She has no enthusiasm for food, but is making an effort to eat.

So we still don’t know whether she is likely to regain any strength as the days lengthen, or whether this is the final downward slope. She has already had more time than some I have known, between diagnosis-and-operation and the end.

Knitting

I was sorry to hear you say, Janet, that you rarely got to see people wearing things you knit for them. It is a great pleasure, and all of my people know it and try to do it – so that I am never entirely sure they haven’t fished the things out from the back of the drawer when they hear me coming. That’s why I was glad to see the Grandson Sweater showing signs of wear, and am always happy when socks are returned to source for darning.

I’ve finished Cathy’s KF socks, but I don’t dare put them in the mail after losing that earflap hat last year. Joe (the Grandson) will be 21 in July and should have a pair of socks to mark his attainment of man’s estate. So now I must look to see what there might be for him in the potential-sock bag.

I have resumed Round-the-Bend. I’m still not sure that sock-yarns-and-Koigu suit the pattern; nor at all sure that the dog’s-dinner approach to blending yarns will work, either. For the moment, I press on. And I have now brought Meg’s DVD onto the scene, and am very glad to have it.

I am somewhere near the gusset phase of the first sleeve. I like those unexpected stripes a lot. The yarn is, I think, Annie’s colorway for Lorna’s Laces Famous Blog series, “Roadside Gerry”. I had two whole skeins and a bit left over from the Adult Surprise Jacket and thus can safely knit on until the first skein is consumed.

My dears – and especially Gail – Franklin wrote to me personally to tell me about that podcast.

I have been having flu since Thursday – the New Year wouldn’t be complete without it. My husband and I have had our protective injections, and I guess it was fairly mild as a result. I am now better, but not well. Fortunately the house party in Strathardle broke up that day, and Greek Helen was here to cook and run errands. I often fret about how little I get done in a day, but the difference between that and being able to do nothing turns out to be profound.

When my turn comes for colon cancer, our children will be fully employed looking after their father.

But at least this morning I have replied to Franklin in terms of extravagant affection; listened to the podcast; and downloaded it for transfer to my MP3 player, for use when I resume my morning walks in Drummond Place Gardens. I don’t remember warning Franklin against sheep-keeping, but I can say, as a Perthshire vegetable gardener, that sheep are more destructive than rabbits and deer combined, and as insolent as cabbage white caterpillars. So I might have done.

We continue to struggle back towards the surface.

The Greeks left for Athens yesterday.

I have finished Cathy’s socks except for Kitchener’ing the second of them. I have watched the beginning of Meg’s Round-the-Bend DVD and am ready to resume work on that.

It is possible, day by day, to write about what’s going on. It’s very hard, on the other hand, to pick anything out of such a week. We had a good time. I am very, very tired. Everybody has now gone on to Strathardle except me and my husband -- 14 of them. I think we have discovered the secret of how to entertain a house party.


This is our Christmas tree, from Poundland (since the pot-grown Norway spruce I had ordered was 50 miles north):


This was Christmas dinner, early stage, when we are all handing each other bread sauce, cranberry sauce, gravy and wine:


This is James in the Traveller scarf:



And his daughter Rachel, in the Japanese hat:



I also heard that Matt was delighted with his socks.

Rachel and her family appeared on Boxing Day. Here we are having supper:



And here are the Grandsons, on the morning of the 27th:


The Grandson Sweater is looking slightly used, I was glad to note. Joe said he has posted a picture of himself wearing it on Facebook, and someone wrote to him to ask where he got it. There’s glory for you.

It’s snowing, here in Edinburgh.

In any other year, this would be the day when I would sign off and wish everybody the happiest of solstices and announce plans to rejoin you in January some time, when the light is coming back.

However, for my own sake, I think I would be glad to have a day-to-day record of the Christmas of 2010. So I will go on – not regularly, perhaps. If James and his family succeed in getting here today, there will be someone sleeping in this room. And there will be competition for the computer, at least until we’ve got everything set up with my new BT Hub. It works fine for me, who am connected to it by wire. But will it extend itself to a houseful of laptops?

I am full of dread. This flat is pretty big, but it is full to the brim with clutter. There is no space. My husband is bad-tempered. He is also old, and getting rather frail. Some of the furniture is seriously good, and all of it needs to be Treated With Respect. A houseful of sprawling teenagers with nowhere to sprawl is (to coin a phrase) a recipe for disaster. In Strathardle we have a much smaller house, but also much less clutter, sturdier furniture, and the great outdoors to throw them out into. We’re not in Strathardle, and not likely to be, anytime soon.

Still, we’ve got a Christmas pudding and some cranberry sauce. It’s a start.

James has emailed already this morning (8am) to say they’ll be taking a later train than the one originally adumbrated (arriving 3pm) because everything is frozen solid in Cheltenham, where they currently are with Cathy’s parents. Helen has emailed to say that Cathy and I will have to prepare the flat she has borrowed from a friend – turn on heat, make beds, leave breakfast supplies. It will give us something to do and get us out of this house for a while. So that’s good. Helen and her fierce boys should arrive late Wednesday – if planes are flying.

Alexander phoned last night to say that they are coming on Monday – otherwise they won’t get to see James at all. Lots of people.

I just want to go to sleep and wake up in January.

We had a good visit with C. yesterday. She’s looking remarkably well, under the circumstances, and seems in good spirits.

And I made progress with the second sock. I always knit fraternal twins, with KF sock yarns:

Still snowless (and bitterly cold) in Edinburgh – I should be able to get my husband across the city to see his sister this morning. There is much snow elsewhere in Britain. Will James and his family get here (by train) tomorrow? Will Helen and hers arrive (by air) on Wednesday and Thursday? Who knows.

I had one Pollyanna-ish thought, though: if we had succeeded in going to Strathardle in November – we were deterred by the weather forecast at virtually the last moment – we would have taken the Christmas pudding along and left it there. As it is, it’s here. I made it earlier in November.

I made the cranberry relish yesterday. Otherwise, little progress. Beds for expected guests still unmade. This is the state of the wrapping:

The problem is – one of the problems is – that, with the pavements clear, it is a good idea for my husband to get out for a walk every day. He won’t go without me, and in this weather it is not a good idea that he should attempt it. So that takes up an appreciable amount of otherwise disposable time. The visit to C. will count as today’s outing. I can make beds this afternoon if I pull myself together.

During the previous weather crisis, before we went to London, Edinburgh was covered with snow and ice and my husband was completely imprisoned. Bad for him, but I had more time for Christmas-card-writing (still not completely finished).

Here are Cathy’s socks, plural:

They’re not a secret, and not a Christmas present, so I can carry on next week. Maybe even finish…

Weather: still no new snow in Edinburgh, although bitter cold, but it seems to be happening further north, and the forecast remains grim.

I spoke to C., who sounded cheerful. I will take my husband to see her tomorrow. She is tremendously pleased with the service she is getting – and she is not one to affect such pleasure without cause. The people who come to help her wash and dress in the morning are well-trained and fully professional. Edinburgh social services are busy fitting bars to the bathroom wall so that C. can hold on and shower in safety. They are lending her -- a brilliant idea – a recliner chair, so that she can nap during the day without having to get up and go to bed.

She is not enthusiastic about food, but is doing her best at least to sip the high-calorie supplements provided. She’s clearly trying, and expecting to gain some strength.

One of our early Christmas cards reported colon cancer in an old friend. Clearly the disease du jour. R.’s is perhaps not quite as bad – she had her operation a fortnight after C. did, and is already at home, with the prospect of chemotherapy to come.

And as for knitting, here’s the sock:

I could conceivably even finish it this evening.

Mary Lou, I hope you’ll try an Oliver soon. It’s very easy, and I like the way it sort of keeps count for you of progress down the foot. I’ve done a pair for my husband, and one for Ketki, and now Matt. Any others? Not sure. Both my husband and Ketki are enthusiastic. But you do have to pay a little bit of attention. Is this an Oliver round, or not? If so, where are the decreases at the moment?

And as for Christmas, I got some wrapping done, and that was about all, for yesterday. Around here, that is often a rush job on Christmas Eve, or even Christmas day -- since we don't open presents until the candles are lit on the tree, at dusk. It feels good to have some packages ready a whole week in advance.

Today I hope to get beds made for James and his family, and maybe wrap some more. It’s slow work, not because I make fancy packages, but because I am clumsy. One thing, though: I bought a reel of stick-on gift labels because they were cheap. They turn out to be significant time-savers – no more threading thread through little holes.

I might also try to start a menu list, along your lines, Kristie. Big pots of relatively simple things. Spaghetti and chilli, as you say. All-in-one chicken-pieces-in-the-oven. Consider, at least, a salad, although it seems rather cold for that. I love your idea of a cook-off. We might even do it, in the Kirkm*chael kitchen. Here, there’s hardly enough work-space for one.

No weather to speak of in Edinburgh yet – it’s warm (for the season) and somewhat wet, this morning. The horrendousness predictions have been pushed a few hours forward. Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow.

I always get into a state about Christmas, especially when I have to “do” it. This will be the first time in some years, for that. But I have never, ever got this near the Day without knowing what kitchen I am going to be cooking in. And how am I going to feed all these people, not just on the Day? James and his family are due on Sunday; Helen and hers, not until Wednesday.

Things will seem better when daughter and daughter-in-law get here. Both are strong and cheerful and utterly competent. Cathy gets it from her mother, somewhat, I think. Helen certainly doesn’t get it from hers.

Meanwhile I must start making lists. And I can also make cranberry sauce (http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/main-ingredient/cranberries/cranberry-and-orange-relish.html) and brandy butter and will feel better for having them done. I could do some wrapping. I sent some packages off yesterday, including Matt’s socks. That’s the post office finished, more or less. I also finished off the present-buying, except for…

There’s always a lurking “more or less” and “except for” this time of year.

Today I will phone C. to find out how she is getting on, and whether she is ready for a visit from my husband.

And meanwhile, I went on with Cathy’s sock. Mundi, you are right that colour helps in dark December. It took me a long time to grasp that.

Cathy has the smallest feet of anyone on my sock list, and I have skipped Oliver-ing (Ravelry link) this time in the interests of speed. So you never know.

Still haven’t looked at that DVD.

A quick update on several on-going stories:

1) C. came home from hospital on Monday. I spoke to her briefly that evening. She thought she would manage well by day, wouldn't need help, but wasn’t feeling strong enough to receive visitors. I’ll phone tomorrow to see if she would let my husband come for half an hour or so, just to sit. After this week things get pretty fraught with the approach of the solstice, for her as well as for us. And we don’t know how much time we’ve got.

2) A remarkable amount of snow removed itself from Edinburgh over the weekend. The city is now perfectly navigable. I haven’t phoned anyone in Kirkm*chael yet, but the roads up there usually get cleared promptly for the sake of the skiers. The forecast for tomorrow and the rest of the week is, however, pretty horrendous. We are poised with a Plan B for spending Christmas here in Edinburgh, as the Beijing Mileses need to exit via Edinburgh airport on the 26th.

3) I finished Matt’s socks. I may even face my final post office queue this afternoon, to dispatch them. And I’ve started some KF socks for Cathy, in a new-to-me colourway. I wouldn’t dare send them by post to Beijing, after the loss of that earflap hat. So I’ve got to finish them in the next 10 days, or hand them over in the summer. We’ll see.

The big news is that the Round-the-Bend DVD has arrived. There was no time yesterday to crack it open, and there may not be any today, but one can hope.

We had a good time in London. My husband keeled over with weariness or perhaps slight illness on Sunday, so we never got to see the Bulgarian treasures at the RA. A real disappointment for him, a lovely relaxed day for me. After Mass we went to the pub. James and Ed played pool while Rachel and I drank cider and watched. Ed is very good, but James didn’t disgrace himself. There is very little of that kind of off-duty silliness in my life, and it was lovely.

I’ve just been putting our rubbish and recycling out into the dark and snow – there’s no doubt, the air is warmer. Yesterday was one of the coldest I’ve ever known, with Edinburgh sheet ice underfoot. It will be rather satisfactory to be in London if only to stride about, after a fortnight of picking one’s way with great caution. I’ll probably trip on a paving stone. We won't see much of James, because Rachel says he works late and she thinks he is going to his in-laws in Cheltenham this weekend to welcome his wife and children, newly-arrived from China. We should catch glimpses.

And we’re all set to go. Back the middle of next week.

Knitting

Stashhaus, I like your idea (comment yesterday) of trying on the Round-the-Bend sleeve to see how it’s blousing – I’ll do that. I have been aware of the difference between the yarn I’m using and Meg’s prototype, without giving much thought as to how to adjust, except for calculating K.

“Fey”

Some years ago Alexander gave us the Oxford English Dictionary, a wonderful Christmas present – the whole 12-volume thing, on a CD-ROM. (My husband calls it “Murray’s”, no doubt for sound historical reasons.) The only trouble with it is that every so often you have to “validate” it with the “data disk”. This becomes absolutely maddening, for a product one has legitimately owned for more years than one can precisely remember.

To my shame, I couldn’t find the data disk yesterday morning. However, I have recovered it, and will be more careful in future.

Apart from its comprehensiveness, it is also much more up-to-date (2002) than the paper dictionaries in daily use here – Webster’s International Second Edition, 1935; and the Shorter Oxford, 1933. For “fey” it gives 1) fated to die; then three obsolete meanings: 2) leading to or presaging death; 3) accursed, unfortunate, unlucky; and 4) feeble, timid, sickly, weak.

But finally, a modern meaning which will justify Alan Bennett’s use: 5) "Disordered in mind like one about to die; possessing or displaying magical, fairylike, or unearthly qualities. Now freq. used ironically, in sense 'affected, whimsy'."

It's not a word I would ever dare use myself, but I thought of it when we went to visit C. in hospital the day before her surgery, when she had just heard her own death sentence. See my blog post of 9/11.

Two more followers! Welcoming hugs!

We’re going to have a go at London. It’s still savagely cold here, although there has been no more snow since Monday’s damp blizzard – but the forecast continues to predict that things will ease somewhat tomorrow. Once I’ve had my porridge I’ll make my way up to the station once again and see about tickets.

C’s homecoming has been delayed for a few days – Monday is now the target, I believe. Just as well, considering the cold. Our niece sounded happy with her progress when we spoke last night.

I proceeded with that sleeve. The utter round-and-roundness is very soothing. Meg says to err “on the too-long side to allow the bloused sleeve to blouse”. I’m all for the blousing of the sleeve, that’s one of the attractions of the pattern – but will it work, with that non-elastic garter stitch cuff? Won’t a too-long sleeve just come down over the knuckles?

I am fully prepared to frog the whole thing when the DVD turns up.

Margaret Stove’s “Wrapped in Lace”

It’s enchanting – recommended. It’s sort of an autobiography, couched in terms of lace, beginning with a reconstruction of her own christening shawl based on photographs of the event. It incorporates accounts of her travels, to Orenburg, to Estonia, to the US, and also the history of her own designing, firmly rooted in her native New Zealand. That’s a very appealing aspect of the book.

She doesn’t shy away from displaying a certain naiveté – in the account, for instance, of how she found a pattern for a “Faro” shawl and adapted the shaping for her own designs, long before she learned about the Faroese tradition.

The Shetland chapter is slightly surprising – it is based on a beautiful antique shawl in pitiful condition which she was asked to restore. There is extremely useful information there on the techniques involved, and on the problems of conservation. The surprise comes from the fact that her own travels in Shetland don’t figure – I know she has been there. And Sharon Miller is conspicuously absent, although every other contemporary lace guru I can think of appears – Galina and Nancy Bush and Myrna Stahman and Hazel Carter. EZ and Meg and Mary Walker Phillips and Barbara Walker also make cameo appearances. No Sharon, although of course she is in the bibliography.

Some good patterns, too.

Alan Bennett

I continue to read him, and continue to find him very good company for these days of cold and fear.

I was astonished yesterday to discover him using “fey” to mean what we all think it means, until we look it up: “A Scot like himself, she was fey as well as formidable – insisting, for instance, in wearing a daisy chain to their wedding.”

Modern dictionaries, according to my discoveries on Google in the last few minutes, allow that meaning. The ones on the shelves in this house do not. They stop with meanings 1a and 1b, in the link I provide. Alan Bennett is using it in sense 3b. He is nearly my age, and meticulous about words. I am disappointed.

But I think I should relax, and adopt Humpty Dumpty's attitude to the meanings of words.

Pearl Harbor Day

My father was AP bureau chief in Detroit on December 7, 1941. A Sunday. I remember his getting the phone call -- one of those memories that photographs the scene.

Hello, new follower! My children and grandchildren know how much I like seeing them wear things I've knit, and they quietly do it when I'm scheduled to be about. I feel somewhat the same about you guys signing up.

No sooner had I forwarded yesterday’s message into the ether than it started snowing. It went on and on and on into the early afternoon. Refund or no refund, I wouldn’t have embarked on a rail journey with my husband in the middle of a mess like that.

It turned out to be pretty wet snow, and I don’t think it has added much to Edinburgh’s general misery. The view from the kitchen window in mid-afternoon:



We are still hoping to go south on Thursday – the weekend forecast, for London at least, shows a definite easing. Rachel has offered to meet us at Kings X which is pretty heroic of her. And if we take her up on it, my husband should be able to manage the extended journey time.

I went up to the station in the afternoon to claim the refund on our tickets. I have a stamped piece of pink paper to show that we will eventually get it. Looking at the Arrivals board, it seemed to me that the emergency timetable is at least working. I even saw a train from Penzance posted as “on time”.

I regarded yesterday as a day off – a feeling one often gets when snow is falling. So I didn’t hunker down to Matt’s socks, but went on with the tentative Round-the-Bend sleeve instead.

It starts with 22 rows of garter stitch. That produced a reasonable-looking cuff, so I didn’t worry about row-gauge. Next, you double the stitch count in one row, for a bloused sleeve. I did that, knit a few more rows, and then introduced the first of my mixed-bag of colours-from-stash, Annie Modesitt’s “Roadside Gerry”, one of the blogger colourways that Lorna’s Laces put out recently. I think it’s perhaps the nicest of them, and for some reason I have two intact skeins left over from last year’s ASJ.


What I didn’t expect, and am delighted by, is the stripe effect. That may help the whole thing look less like a dog’s dinner. The stitch count now remains the same until the top of the sleeve, so it won't change. I’ll go on with Roadside Gerry all the way up the sleeve, with the other skein in waiting for the other sleeve.

I have much to say – about Margaret Stove’s book, about Alan Bennett. I mustn’t forget. But now it’s time to get on with Tuesday.

Another new follower! You are as welcome as every one of your 61 predecessors, but your arrival is particularly cheering in these days of cold and darkness and fear and disappointment.

Here we still are. The East Coast Line provisional timetable for today shows that the train we’re booked on is not going to be running, and the others are scheduled to take about 20% longer than their usual time. Longer than that, of course, if they slow down and stop for an indeterminate period in Northumberland. I struggled up to Waverley in a blizzard last Thursday and learned from a woman who would have fitted right in working for Hitler that we would get our money back if the train actually didn’t run.

So we’re lucky. We have an Advance ticket supposed to be good only for the train we’re booked on. (In these circumstances, it would qualify us to ride on the train just-before or just-after if we didn't mind travelling without seats.) If we had picked one of the others, the mere fact that the journey was now going to be uncomfortably long and my husband is 85 and wheezy would have cut no ice.

We’re hoping to go on Thursday, dangerously near Christmas for so exhausting an undertaking – but the forecast does show things getting better in London, at least, over the weekend. At the moment, conditions are treacherous underfoot all the way from Rachel’s house to the 159 bus stop which carries us into the heart of London.

My husband has never, ever failed to see the Turner Prize show. It goes off on January 3. So things are critical.

I spoke to our niece last night. She sounded low. C. has previously looked well, whatever the horrors reported, but over the weekend she was pale. I think things may pick up once she gets home, still scheduled for Wednesday. One of the women in her room is a loony who talks all the time and occasionally leaps out of bed in the middle of the night, grabs her zimmer frame, and makes a bid for freedom. The other two women in the room are fairly deaf, but C. is suffering.

Having read Alan Bennett on the subject of his colon cancer I went on to finish “Untold Stories” and now have gone back to “Writing Home”. Both are loose collections of diaries and miscellaneous journalism and writing-for-TV. Much is familiar, but I can’t remember whether I’ve read either of them straight through before. He has a brilliant ear for absurdity, and is perfectly suited to the weather, the gloom, and the events unfolding around me.

Knitting

Thank you for your encouraging remarks about the Japanese hat. I never thought of tying those ties – nobody does that in Edinburgh, and I can assure you that I’ve seen a great many ear-flap hats in the last few days. But I can see that it might be useful, and the Gobi desert, for the edges of which the hat is destined, gets very cold in the winter.

I did cast on Round-the-Bend last night. I’m glad that DVD is on the way. The pattern is couched in terms of K – determined, as usual, by multiplying stitches-per-inch by desired circumference. But there are quite a few places – including the initial cuffs – where the instructions are expressed in absolute terms, number-of-rows. The yarns in my piles of sock-yarns-and-Koigu are much finer than the stuff Meg used for the prototype. Caution required.

I had looked forward to the events of this week finishing off Matt’s socks by themselves without effort from me – now I’ll have to knit them here, not entirely trusting our hopes for Thursday. They’re not exactly Christmas knitting, and Matt certainly isn’t expecting them, but I’d like to have them available for the day.

A bit of a thaw yesterday. The night was colder again, and there is no further sound of drip when I open the door to Drummond-Place-in-the-dark this morning. But no more snow. I think at the moment, our inclination is to try to get to London tomorrow. I must devote much of today to finding out what sort of service East Coast Main Line thinks they can offer, what Streatham is like underfoot, whether London suburban trains are running.

I crossed off all three of yesterday’s Tasks and have already made today’s list – in fact, any time that can be salvaged today from Mass-going and cooking and eating will need to be dedicated to London-going.

One of the items on yesterday’s list was to finish the Japanese hat. Look at that:

I didn’t get anywhere trying to make a braid with the yarns doubled, so I went for i-cord, and made little pom-poms. Both activities performed with teeth firmly gritted, you may be sure. And I’m not entirely sure that the result isn’t a bit too coarse and heavy for the hat – but I’m certainly not going to attempt anything else. That’s Christmas knitting finished.

And I had time for a little more sock-knitting. I’m now around the heel of Matt’s second sock, and starting the Oliver shaping. Far enough along, in fact, that I’ll need to pluck another ball of sock yarn from the stash to take along if we go to London, and choose the next recipient.

Will I even cast on Round-the-Bend this evening, however tentatively? I made a swatch, the evening we got C.’s news.

I spoke to our niece yesterday. Arrangements are going forward nicely for a homecoming on Wednesday, nursing services, medical services, friends-and-relatives.

(I just figured out how to look at my "Spam inbox", a new feature here on Blogger, and found, to my horror, a comment from you, Dawn, and one from you, Fishwife, among the junk. They have now been published and, more to the point, read and appreciated -- they were both informative, with links, which must have been what upset Blogger. I'll check more often henceforth.)

Hello, new follower!

The weather has eased a bit. No snow has fallen since late on Thursday. Edinburgh felt slightly convalescent yesterday, and a very slight thaw has continued through the night. Hope for our trip to London after all? We shall see. There’s still a lot of the wretched stuff about.

Plans are advancing briskly to get C. home next Wednesday. Our niece went to see the head dr at her GP practice yesterday about arrangements, and her report of the conversation is rather encouraging. She told him how her mother dreads a return of the abdominal pain she was suffering when she was carried off to hospital a month ago. He said that the operation will have relieved the blockage, and it may not return. Death could occur from renal failure or something else.

Surely this plain speaking, however difficult for drs, makes things vastly easier for everybody, including the sufferer. How we must once have tiptoed around, everybody knowing, nobody saying anything! No tears, no hugs, no laughing, just when they are most needed.

I have been re-reading the last chapter of Evelyn Waugh’s biography of Ronald Knox, a prominent Roman Catholic clergyman of the early and mid 20th century, pretty well forgotten by now. He died of colon cancer. (Everybody seems to have it – I’ve also been re-reading Alan Bennett’s account of his.)

After being poorly during the winter of ’56-’57, Knox’s dr suspected cancer. “The disease was not named to Ronald.” The operation on January 20 revealed that it had spread to the liver (as colon cancer has a tendency to do). He got home on February 7th and spent a miserable few months thinking that his failure to improve was his own fault: “He believed that through lack of will he was falling into the habits of an invalid and that he should be able by effort to achieve his normal activities.”

In mid-May his sister was told: “Medical etiquette required that she, as the nearest accessible relative, should be officially informed of what all suspected…At the end of the month, Ronald himself, the last of those concerned, was told he was fatally ill.” He died on August 24. I heard of his death on my wedding day, in New Jersey, a week later, from the best man.

It reads like a report from another planet.

Onwards

Christmas is not, I suspect, going to be cancelled. I made a little list yesterday morning of five things I might get done during the day. Fairly easy and straightforward things which I had noticed had lately been pushed aside from day to day. I got four of them done, and have started a new list for today.

It includes those blasted braids for the Japanese hat. I finished tidying the scarf yesterday, and spent the rest of knitting time on Matt’s sock – we’re just rounding the second heel. I feel that the braids by now count as Christmas which means I can take time for them during non-knitting hours.

Yesterday I thought maybe I’d stop blogging for a while, but I find I need you guys. I am deeply grateful for all your messages.

So here I am, and we’re carrying on. It sounds as if everybody, the hospital included, has swung into action on the problems involved in getting C. back home. I think in the event it was the drs themselves who decided not to “offer invention”, rather than C. who rejected chemotherapy. There are lots of resources – I believe the original Maggie’s Centre is the one there at the Western Infirmary of Edinburgh. (The Fishwife mentioned it in a comment early on.) People with equally dreadful but less pronounceable diseases than cancer perhaps have a leaner time of it.

Rachel knows a lot about death, and is a great fan of the hospice movement. As are we all. She actually saw Cecily Saunders once, when she was visiting a dying friend. It sounds as impossible as actually seeing Aristotle. She had better phone her cousin over the weekend.

Meanwhile, life certainly goes on. Christmas has not been cancelled. The snow has not gone away – indeed, more has fallen.

The view from the kitchen window...



We had planned to go to London on Monday for a week of art. James is there, staying with Rachel, working in the Economist office. It would have been a thoroughly welcome break in a number of on-going narratives.

Trains are running, but they are taking a long, long time and my husband doesn’t think he could stand it. The suburban trains are not running, the ones which figure in the last hour of the journey as they carry us from King’s Cross to Streatham. And at the moment, the snow underfoot in south London would make it difficult for my husband to get out, just as here. So we wait and see, not very hopefully.

I got the insulin on Wednesday. It was hard work. I haven’t even begun to think of digging out the car, so no supermarket this week as well as no hospital visiting. That means a lot of trudging about through the snow buying this and that as we run out. And speaking of digging out cars, don’t miss the clip Helen C.K.S. has posted.

Knitting

I’ve cast off the scarf and am nearly finished with the loose ends. There are a lot, because the yarn is cut twice during each twist. Next, the braids for that Japanese hat. (One good thing to be said for this weather, is that I have seen beyond any doubt the continued popularity of ear-flap hats, on all ages, sizes and sexes.) Then Matt’s socks, which were to have been polished off on those train journeys.

C.’s news is very bad – “a few months”. Of course we’ve all known this, including C. herself, since the 8th of November, the day before her surgery. The delivery of the verdict yesterday was, nevertheless, a tremendous shock.

That was Games Day, 2010, the traditional picture we always take at the end of the afternoon. C. is towards the left, framed by Greek Helen in the Macdougall jacket, leaning one way, and the niece I keep talking about, in a brown coat, leaning the other. Next to her is her sister F. (who lives in Glasgow), in a green jacket, with her husband behind and her sons beside her. C.s dear granddaughter Little C. was also there, with a boyfriend, but they had failed to grasp the importance of the picture-taking and were somewhere else.