Little to report, so I’ll add some Thots.

Knitting

I left the hat and its many loose ends yesterday, and knit peacefully on with the Wingspan. It’s just what’s wanted, easy and soothing.

And I booked my train journeys to and from London for next month. (That counts as “knitting” because of course I am going down there for Franklin’s classes at Loop.) Shandy has booked our lunch at the Elk in the Woods. Catdownunder, this is unknown territory to me. For many years now, all my movements around London have been in pursuit of art. All that is to be found in Islington is the Estorick Collection. Well worth a visit, but it offers neither yarn nor (I think) lunch.

I’ll have to get to work with Google maps and the subway map soon. But I can assure you, cat, that Loop is one of the very best LYS’s in Britain, and the Elk in the Woods isn’t far away. (I’m trusting Shandy on that one.) Definitely worth pencilling in for your next visit to London, sight-unseen.

Thot (1)

There was a long and interesting profile of Mr. Romney in a recent New Yorker – I read it in Strathardle the other day.  I’m not going to vote this time – it’s sort of hard work extracting a ballot from Monmouth County, NJ, and I’m not as fired up as I was last time. Reading the New Yorker, I found myself not at all sure that a businessman might not be a good idea, for President, just now.

He’s certainly not as odious (or as stupid?) as GW Bush. He may be awfully rich, but at least it seems to be largely money he’s made himself. Unlike Bush, again. He sounds like an honourable man, and that counts for something. His lack of success as a demagogue might even be counted as an asset.

I have timidly advanced these thoughts to Rachel and to my hairdresser, both of whom slapped them down with vigour.

Thot (2)

A great British horse, Frankel by name, has just retired from flat racing after his 14^th successive victory. They’re saying greatest-of-all-time, up there with Seabiscuit and Man o’War. He was trained by Henry Cecil, a big name in British racing, now near death but he was there for Frankel’s last race on Saturday, able to whisper to the microphone that he had never seen a horse like this one.

What I wonder is, does an animal enjoy being that good? Surely he must. And secondly, when the race is going on and he is galloping along happily in fourth place, how does the jockey tell him that it’s time to make the move? Use of the whip is much restricted these days. He’s standing up in the stirrups, so can’t signal with his legs as in the equestrian novels of my girlhood. Flapping the reins and shouting “giddy-up” doesn’t quite seem appropriate. But horse and man clearly know each other’s minds.

Here’s Saturday’s race. You’ll see. Frankel leaves it so late I got worried even watching again this morning.

Now he retires to stud. We had an interesting article in the New Yorker on that subject a couple of years ago. Artificial insemination is not allowed for thoroughbred horses. Frankel will be busy all day every day. He must be worth as much as a Picasso.