Sunday, January 31, 2021

 

A good day. 3017 steps. C. and I got twice around the garden; kimchi-making did the rest. Kimchi is harder work than sourdough:




 

(There's another, larger jarful as well.) Next time I must take care to make more before I run out. I’ve got a little jar of store-boughten to tide me over: it tastes more or less all right, but is utterly lacking in crunch.

 

And I’m just short of half-way along the edging of the third side of Gudrun’s hap.

 

You didn’t tell me that Norah Gaughan has just published a “Twisted Stitch Sourcebook”!  It’s been out (over here) for 10 days. Why wasn’t it reviewed in the last issue of the British “Knitting” magazine? Could I have missed it? I always look at book reviews. At any rate, I found it while wandering around Amazon looking for some trash to read now that I’ve finished Tomalin on Jane Austen, and it should be here tomorrow.  It’s always worth whizzing through Amazon’s recommendations – and there it was.

 

For trash I went for (not trash at all, but) LeCarre’s “A Perfect Spy”. I know I’ve read it, but it wasn’t on my Kindle. I think it’ll do fine.

 

Tomalin continued good. I have never “done” Austen, and am very glad to have the outline of her life in my mind, while it lasts; and especially glad to know how to divide the books down the middle between the early and the late. I think our edition includes “Sanditon” – perhaps I’ll read that, just to round things off. What a shame that so few letters survive. I knew that her sister Cassandra had destroyed a lot of the ones to her, but didn’t know about the letters to her brother – I’ve already forgotten which brother – carefully preserved throughout his long life, and tossed away by his daughter after his death.

 

COVID

 

The number of new cases and of hospital admissions has fallen in the last week. My sister says that the same is true in the US. Epidemiologists there think that perhaps far more people have had it than we thought, and herd immunity is beginning to kick in. My tutor says that numbers are falling in Italy, too. Let’s hope it’s not a coincidence.

 

And that’s dry January done!

6 comments:

  1. =Tamar7:30 PM

    I'm pretty sure I had it in January 2020, just before we were told about it. At least, whatever it was, all the symptoms I had matched the ones that were later publicized.

    Reading Austen in approximate written-order, I think I see a development from conservativism to a much more radical, or perhaps, cynical view.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My doctor finally acknowledged that I "probably" had it, starting at the end of November, 2019, based on my symptoms. It ran around the Tri-Cities in Washington about the same time I was ill in Vancouver, so it was "probably" active in Washington State well before anyone realized.

      Delete
  2. Just watched the Emma Thompson 'Sense and Sensibility' on TV this afternoon. It was the first JA I read of my own accord, when I 17, and I was hooked. Must re read to see how much of the dialogue is actually in the book! JA was so sharp!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a brilliant version although High Grant is not a very likely match for Emma Thompson in it. The music is superb though.

      Delete
  3. I saw the Norah Gaughn book in someone’s post on Instagram, and then it flew out of my brain. Well worth it, I’m sure, although I find twisted stitches a bit tedious. Years ago I made a vest entirely in twisted garter stitch in cotton. My wrists were sore every day. I wonder where that went...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous11:04 AM

    I guess the inelasticity of cotton didn't help matters, Mary Lou. I am wrangling cotton right now, maybe never again. Jean, do you have Norah's Knitting Nature? I am a very simple knitter but I love stretching my imagination by paging through it. Chloe

    ReplyDelete