Not much, but something. I watched the Andrew Marr show, as often on a Sunday, and during its progress – since it doesn’t really require much watching -- I resumed knitting the Spring Shawl. It wasn’t entirely easy. I knew the next row was a return row, but it took me a while to figure out which one. However, eventually I got it, and I knit it, and although that was only one row, I feel I’m back in the saddle.

To approach the documentation of my week away from the wrong direction, here are two pictures from my post-wedding week in London. First, Kirsty and her Christening shawl:

And then her mother Cathy, holding up the First Holy Communion shawl I knit for both Kirsty and her sister Rachel. Both sets of initials are included:

Cathy seems to have done a better job than I did, on keeping it white. Or maybe it’s a different yarn.

I wrote out the pattern at one point, and even posted it on line for a while. There are few if any First-Holy-Communion-shawl patterns out there. It might be worth trying to resurrect it. I remember a good deal of its sources, but not how to do its overall shape. It’s done top-down, I remember that, as it added to the excitement of getting the initials the right-way-around and the right-side-up.

Non-knit

Thank you for the nudge towards “Wives and Daughters”, Shandy. I wonder if that’s the one I’ve read, since “North and South” felt so completely strange? That’s no reason not to read it again. Au contraire.

I’ve just finished “After the Party” by Cressida Connolly. I wouldn’t recommend it very highly. It’s a meticulously researched tale about Oswald Mosley and his supporters, some of them interned during the war. I think I kept expecting all the research to be the platform for a story, but that never quite happens.

Meticulously researched – but there is a reference to the internees being held “at Her Majesty’s pleasure”. Everybody is so young these days! but I am still surprised that neither author nor editor nor proof-reader spotted what’s wrong with that one.