Lots of thanks for yesterday’s comments.

The link to Lucy Neatby’s account of Knit Camp, to begin with. I hadn’t been paying much attention, since my own failure to turn up. Clearly the story isn’t over. This is appalling – the workman is worthy of his hire, and it seems especially appalling when transatlantic transportation is included in what is not being paid. I hate the thought that even the money I forfeited by not showing has not gone to the teachers who earned it.

Donna Druchunas (whose class I didn’t go to) seems to have stopped blogging altogether. Is she Twittering elsewhere? Liz Lovick – she was a teacher, too, wasn’t she? – has written only of her utterly wonderful-sounding tour of Shetland. Annie M. hasn’t mentioned Knit Camp since she left Stirling, I don’t think. She’s recently back from teaching in Frascati, full of enthusiasm. Annie is almost always full of enthusiasm, with an undercurrent of terror.

I wonder if Lucy’s going-public will unleash the hounds?

Catdownunder, I would very much like to see your lace-yarn-stash-busting shrug pattern. I am pro-shrug. And I might add, in answer to the question on your blog, that here in the northern hemisphere where the whole thing got started, we are celebrating the winter solstice at Christmas. When religion (in Russia) and Catholicism (in Scotland) were ruled out by the authorities, the populations just switched their festivities to the New Year. The end of darkness and beginning of light is a big thing when one lives in proximity to the North Pole. The whole affair must be very odd indeed, for you.

Fuzzarelly, thank you for the wonderful link to Angus McDairmid’s book. The very thing, I thought, for a Christmas present for my husband. My geography is vague, but I’m pretty sure we’re talking about Perthshire. However, Abebooks doesn’t have it, and it would probably be very expensive if I did find a copy. I will try to hold the thought, however.

And before I get back to the topic of knitting – I think the Pope is doing pretty well. I have set the machine to record his Mass this morning, beatifying Cardinal Newman. Then, when we get back from Mass ourselves, I can fast-forward through the boring bits and hear the sermon.

When we lived in Birmingham, Newman’s Oratory was our parish church. His personality filled it still. I have read a fair amount of him, in the days when I was more mentally active. Pundits are saying that the Pope is trying to highjack him for ultra-orthodoxy. I wonder, having some respect for the Pope as a theologian.

I don’t know much about decomposition, but the story of the recent digging up of Newman -- a disgusting idea -- in order to use his bones as relics if he did be declared a saint, is very odd. There was nothing there except the brass plate from the coffin. Is that normal for Birmingham? It seems as miraculous to me as if they had found his body intact.

I have seen that little graveyard. Rachel and Ed were married at the Oratory. And I have left myself no space to write about knitting