Wednesday, January 01, 2020


A quiet year, so far. I have been somewhat seized by melancholy; I trust it will pass.

Gudrun’s hap continues well – the stitch count is nearly down to 100 (from 144), the product lovely and cosy. I’m now using a third ball of yarn; it won’t be enough to finish the central square. I’ve found a nice, long circular of the right gauge for the next phase.

I’ve had no luck with finding the Spring Shawl. If the disappearance was the cats’ fault, the chest of drawers on which I think I left it, is far and away the best hiding place in the room, either under or behind. But it’s not there. The cats often drag knitting out from that room into the hall – but it’s not there, either, and there are no hiding places in the hall.

Perhaps I’ll try looking behind the chest again. It is a valuable principle of searching, to keep looking every so often where the object ought to be. And that’s where the empty cardboard cone was found, around which the yarn was previously wrapped. There is a ball of yarn wedged back there, but it’s orange. There is a heavy, valuable, breakable object on top of the chest, so I can’t pull it recklessly forward from the wall.

I think you are going to be proved right, Tamar, that I'll just have to start again.

Non-knit

I’ve been reading “Northanger Abbey” today. Goodness, it’s delightful!

Mary Lou, that Ruth Rendell in which a character notices a mis-crossed cable in someone’s knitting, is one of the ones I’ve been reading recently. Is that the same one in which Inspector Wexford suspects (rightly or wrongly, I can’t remember) that the victim was garroted with a circular needle?

I knocked my beloved iPad off the kitchen table yesterday and have somewhat damaged its display. Perhaps that is all that is necessary to explain my melancholy. I am as attached to that machine as everybody else is to their telephones. Archie is coming tomorrow and we will address the problem.

8 comments:

  1. Oh Jean! No iPad, no Spring Shawl! Not a good start to the year. It can surely only go upwards from now on - hope so anyway

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  2. Anonymous6:50 AM

    Jean, I seem to remember you mentioning that the last time you had seen the spring shawl you had been showing it to a visitor (possibly MAureen?). Did you meet her for coffee, ot at a yarn shop? Could the knitting have been left there inadvertently? Or still in a bag somewhere in the house?

    Hope the ipad can be fixed. By the well-known rules of the little household gods, if you re-start the spring shawl then the previous version will probably emerge from its hidey-hole.
    All the best for 2020, hopefully when we all look back over it at the end we will see lots of completed projects and lots of interesting books and exhibitions and walks experienced and enjoyed.
    JennyS

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  3. Anonymous10:30 AM

    I felt the same when I dropped my iPad. I felt much better when I bought a new one. That big crack down one third of the screen was very depressing. You might buy the insurance that will replace it for you if it happens again. Maybe if you made a conscious effort to forget about the Spring Shawl your un-conscious mind might remember it. Chloe

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  4. I wonder whether the shawl has been tucked into one of the drawers and then slipped down behind the drawer into the carcass of the main chest?
    I hope you find it soon! Stella

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  5. Often a display can be replaced. I agree about the insurance - annoying but worth it when something happens.

    Try telling yourself to dream about the shawl before you sleep and ask st Anthony to help you find it. My MaMa told me to do that and inevitably it works. I would wake in the with an idea of where the lost object may be.

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  6. I can’t remember which it was. I would enjoy rereading them, I think.

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