Thursday, March 28, 2019


597 stitches! Ce l’ho fatta!

I am currently knitting my way back to the beginning, without increasing, which is what happens on every fourth row anyway. The pattern doesn’t mention doing that, but I thought it would be more prudent to do the two-stitch i-cord bind-off with the right side facing. I really ought to spend this evening getting started on the homework for my early-morning Italian lesson on Saturday: but I suspect I’ll knit.

The computer has settled down. Eventually it ran completely out of electricity, enabling me to apply the Sovereign Remedy. I have never seen a problem quite like that one, where it would respond to some instructions but they were distinctly a minority.

Reading

“Daniel Deronda” has improved a bit, now that Daniel himself has made an appearance. In the 14 (or so) preceding chapters, there wasn’t a single sympathetic character. Or even an interesting baddie.

I didn’t really mean to suggest that Trollope and Eliot should have lived together in married bliss – just that I was surprised to find that they were so close in age. I think of him as utterly 19th century, her as looking forward to the 20th. She does have enormously long reflective paragraphs, though – perhaps even longer than his, and certainly more difficult. I keep having to stop and go back to the beginning of a sentence to try to work out what it means. Almost as bad as reading Henry James.

General non-knit

I feel I ought to be offering insights on the Brexit mess, for the edification of American and antipodean readers. I have none to offer. Do you suppose folk sat about up here in 1066 saying to each other, “I hear they’ve had a spot of bother down in Hastings”?

5 comments:

  1. I must say the more I read the more confused I am. The most recent story about Teresa May saying she will resign if they vote for her plan? So odd.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I suspect it might be so. History tends to repeat itself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous10:11 AM

    I love your Italian Jean. Looks like you know enough to make sense out of Italian TV, if available. Just for the practice. Maybe the news if they have it. Of course, If you can't find a program you like you might not want to stick with it. Chloe

    ReplyDelete
  4. When I was in Italy several years ago I got hooked on a TV show about a policeman, called Il Commissario. I don't speak Italian (some Spanish and there are some similarities) but I was able to follow a lot of the show and found that using closed captions, even though they were in Italian, was helpful since they went by a lot more slowly than the spoken word (and of course left out a lot). It was a fun way to "learn" the language and I think eventually it would have really helped learning.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous9:10 AM

    Sounds ideal!

    ReplyDelete