Little to report. In fact, nothing.
I may be making a day-trip to Kirkmichael tomorrow, to bring
the apple harvest in. We are somewhat deterred by the weather forecast. So I
may or may not be here.
No knitting. No excuses except the usual post-Italian-lesson
exhaustion. Perhaps the thing, once I finish here, is to go tackle that scarf,
although row 50 of the Spring Shawl borders remains to be done. Usually of an
evening I huddle in the kitchen with my cats, reading or watching Italian
cookery videos, until a decent time for bed-going. But the scarf ought to be
easy enough, once I put myself to rights, that I can huddle with it.
I bought Anne Tyler’s “A Spool of Blue Thread” or whatever
it’s called, but I’m not enjoying it much. So I invested a further 50p in “Barchester
Towers” and am glad to be back there. Is it of interest that none of Trollope’s
clergymen seem to have any interest in the matters discussed in “Unsheltered”?
Trollope wasn’t a clergyman, or a scientist, but he was very much in touch with
the world.
His clergymen are agitated by Socinianism (a non-trinitarian
Christology, Wikipedia says) and Romish tendencies but quite unconcerned by the
age of the earth, as revealed in fossils, or by The Origin of Species.
No – forget that. It was written just too soon for Darwin or
for fossils. The date of the “past” sections of “Unsheltered” are a crucial 15
or 20 years later.
Maureen from Fargo is coming to see me next week, fresh from Shetland Wool Week. We'll do lunch.
I've just finished "A Spool of Blue Thread" for the second time, I realised after I was a way into it. I'm not sure why it got such rave reviews, but it is certainly worth finishing. The core of it seems to be family secrets, with the mother of the family being a repository of confidences. There are some amusing portraits of individuals, such as Atta who finds her American workmates unfathomable because they are polite to her but never invite her to their homes. But it is obviously forgettable, as I did just that.
ReplyDeleteI hope that you can get back into the swing of the scarf. I just pulled out an item that I have about 80% completed, not touched since last winter. I have design notes in my notebook, but it will take a few hours of puzzling, I think. I should know by know not to do that, but nevertheless, I persist! How lovely that you get to see Maureen! I hope apple weather is perfect and you get to go,
ReplyDeleteSunday evening and you are not here - I hope that means that you managed to take your trip before the weather gets really rough!
ReplyDelete