A day of peerless beauty. We even had a sunbather in Drummond Place Gardens – it would still have been a bit too nippy for me. 2716 steps – I had better give some serious thought to pushing it up to 3000, at least occasionally. I walked alone, while Helen toiled on with her mosaic. She left abruptly this afternoon, saying that her dr had phoned and wanted to see her, presumably about the odd reaction she had to her first vaccination but those of us who remember the Coen Bros’ brilliant “A Serious Man” don’t take such phone calls lightly.

 

Here’s the current state of play with wee Hamish’s Calcutta Cup vest. Progress is slow, as I said. It’s too soon to say whether I like the way it’s working out. But it’s not hopeless.

 

Our cruise: I’m pressing ahead on the assumption that this – our fourth attempt – that this time it's going to happen. I’m terrified about leaving the house, as I’ve said, but I’ve ordered a shirt from Toast and have let Helen make a hair appt for me. That leaves my feet, and the cats, to attend to.

 

I continue to press forward with “I Vicere”, but, goodness! it’s long. I’ve done this week’s canto, Inferno-wise.

 

Another beautiful day. Thank you for bearing with yesterday’s rant  -- I feared you’d kick me downstairs.

 

I got around the garden alone today – 2565 steps. Yesterday, with Arehie, slightly fewer. If only dandelions weren’t so – so what? so deep-rooted? – we’d treasure them along with the daffodils for their cheerful springtime faces. And their leaves are good in salads, which is more than can you say for daffodils..

 

Wee Hamish’s Calcutta Cup vest is advancing. Slowly. It’s time I took a picture for you. I’m aiming for an effect somewhat on the lines of the dust jacket of McGregor’s “Fair Isle Knitting”. I’m using a simple all-over pattern from within. Aiming doesn’t mean hitting and I remain fully prepared to stop and start again. I think I’m beginning to get hold of the pattern, mentally. Once upon a time, it didn’t take me so long.

 

Reading

 

Having looked up that passage for you yesterday, I went ahead and finished “My Life and Hard Times”, laughing aloud at the passage where Thurber can’t think of “Perth Amboy” and wakes up his father in the middle of the night asking him to name cities in New Jersey. The racism is more than a bit breath-taking, by modern standards, and it is good to be reminded of how fresh the history is: one of the Thurbers’ domestic servants had been a slave. That’s my parents’ generation.

 

I’m a bit further forward with “I Vicere”, too. It’s going slowly, like the Calcutta Cup vest, but I think I am pushing beyond the furthest point reached on former attempts. Cholera is still raging.

Contrariwise...

 On the evening of November 22, 1963, my dear Uncle Nat, a Dallas lawyer, my mother’s brother, went down to the court house with his partner because they feared Oswald was being denied his civil rights. I don’t think they got very far. They went, not because they didn’t love Kennedy, but because they did…

 

Last night, as I was going to bed (early, as always) the news told me that the Chauvin jury was still out. They also said that Mr Biden had made a statement indicating clearly which way he wanted them to go, and also that he had phoned the Floyd family. I was uneasy – what about the presumption of innocence, which would have been available even to Adolf Hitler? The BBC may have been uneasy as well, because they kept telling me that the jury was “sequestered” and couldn’t hear the president’s views.

 

This morning, of course, all such anxieties are subsumed in the general euphoria. Was that a fair trial? Was a fair trial possible?

 

Mr Biden and I seem increasingly at odds. A few days ago, it was his slow and sloppy response to Prince Philips’s death. For our quarrel before that, see my blog entry for last Saturday, the day of Prince Philip’s funeral. I’m sure he’s not worried about our differences; maybe I should stop fretting.

 

James Thurber, from “My Life and Hard Times”:

 

“Ohio State was a land grant university and therefore two years of military drill was compulsory…As a soldier I was never any good at all…One day General Littlefield picked our company out of the whole regiment and tried to get it mixed up by putting it through one movement after another as fast as we could execute them: squads right, squads left, squads on right into line, squads right about, squads left front into line, etc. In about three minutes one hundred and nine men were marching in one direction and I was marching away from them at an angle of forty degrees. ‘Company halt!’ shouted General Littlefield. ‘That man is the only man who has it right!’”

 

That’s how I feel today.

 

A little bit better. Archie came, and I got around the garden with him in slightly better order than yesterday, when I was on my own. I kept stopping for sit-downs, then. And I got a few rounds of knitting done: back in the saddle. I was encouraged by your remark, Tamar, suggesting that I may be suffering from burnout rather then simple old age.

 

What Archie and I mean to do tomorrow is prepare the package for dispatch to London, at last: the shawl, the Polliwog, and, by the way, Rachel’s Christmas present. We would have done it today but after a belated steam-pressing of the Polliwog, I thought it would be prudent to wait a day until it was completely dry. But I think I can sign it off, in the sidebar.

 

And Archie and I have some gardening to do, as well. An order of trailing fuchsias turned up today.

 

I made some progress – not much – with “I Vicere”. Archie is reading Zola, of whom I know nothing. He is the only grandchild who asks me, What are you reading?

 

I did a little bit of googl’ing on my own, since there wasn’t an answer here to my question yesterday about glioblastoma. I gather than it is extremely bad news; turns up suddenly with relatively harmless-seeming symptoms, as in Andrew’s case; and that they’re working hard on DNA-specific treatments but haven’t got very far yet. Which is more or less what I expected.

Helen sent me this remarkable picture this morning. You may have seen it already on Instagram. I used to get more knitting done in those days. Ketki is wearing a Tumbling Blocks, of course; and Helen, her wedding sweater, with various significant symbols.

 

Andrew Doig is dead. I suspect you all know that already.

 

In case, however, anyone doesn’t: go to Youtube, type in “Fruity Knitting”, and choose from the extensive library of back issues. Any one will do. Andrew was the lights-and-camera man, Andrea the superb and meticulous knitter. She was also brilliant at interviews, never less than completely prepared. But the jewel in the crown, the cherry on the cake, was Andrew learning to knit. Not as a joke, but seriously: and he was making great progress.

 

He died at a clinic, somewhere in the Black Forest, where they are working on treatments based on the DNA of one’s own tumour. There was a letter in the Times, perhaps a month ago, complaining that people with glioblastoma who wanted to travel to Germany for such treatment had the extra costs of testing and isolation to bear. My question is this: do the results so far offer any glimmer of hope? I know, of course, that no-hope today could mean a spectacular breakthrough in six months’ time. Andrea did a lot of serious research before she bundled Andrew into the car and drove him off to the Black Forest.

 

Not much else. Still no knitting. What is the matter with me? I got around the garden this morning all by myself – and, goodness! isn’t April wonderful? – but it was a struggle. 1812 steps. It’s relatively early.

 

A slow and unsatisfactory day. I’ll have to do better tomorrow. C. and I got once around the garden – 2148 steps. Could be a lot worse.

 

I have discovered the pleasures of watching television while hunched over my kitchen table – and that means, on Sunday mornings, hunching there instead of knitting in the sitting room, during the Andrew Marr show. 

Andrew Marr has a lot of business to get through before he can get on to the Scottish election. I’m still hoping that he’ll invite my currently favourite politician, Anas Sarwar, the new head of Scottish Labour, in for a talk. “Campaigning as leader and abstaining from food from dawn to sunset during a Covid pandemic is not something I had particularly thought through,” he says in today’s Times (referring to Ramadan, of course). Which I find rather endearing.

 

No knitting today, and I think I’m ready for bed. I also think I’m still expecting an Amazon delivery.

 

Comments

 

Thank you for your help with my pre-cruise anxiety. Kristen, your anxiety about a one-night stay away was particularly inspiriting. If you can do it, I can too.  And, Tamar, your advice chimes with what – now that I think of it – used to be my mantra (I suppose one might say) in moments of pre-travel stress: when you suddenly think of something that needs to be done, do it right then. There were specific jobs I meant to get done today, and haven’t, and will now leave until tomorrow; that’s another matter.

 

Reading

 

I’ve moved forward with both “Mirror Land” and “I Vicere”. In the latter case, Sicily is beginning to experience a cholera epidemic. I’ve got that far forward in the book before, but it is interesting how differently one views an epidemic now that one is engulfed in one. I used to feel vaguely that we have made much progress since the 19^th century (which is true) and that we now know about the importance of pure water and general sanitation in warding off cholera, and that not much could ever happen to us. I now feel rather differently.

 

I’ve been watching the royal funeral all afternoon (so have you, probably) and therefore haven’t got anything done. I thought the simplicity imposed by Covid was a tremendous plus, and was proud of the Royal Family for observing it so strictly.

 

On Inauguration Day, Biden told us to wear masks in public henceforth, and then, that evening, went to the Lincoln Memorial with his family, without one. The next day a reporter asked his spokesman, very politely, how this could be. She didn’t answer the question and in effect, I thought, laughed at him for supposing that the rules which bind the rest of us affect a President on his Inauguration Day. I put the question to my sister and she was on the side of the spokesman – I was being absurdly fussy. So I was especially glad, today, to see the royals observing the rules meticulously. The politeness of princes.

 

And also glad that the Queen can walk without a stick.

 

There’s always a surreptitious element of Gilbert and Sullivan, and indeed of Lewis Carroll, on such state occasions. I enjoyed that, too.

 

Prince Philip was fond of carriage-driving into extreme old age. His empty carriage was there, with the two black ponies who used to draw it. That was very touching.

 

C. came this morning, and we staggered around the garden. 2430 steps – more than I would expect. She says that our cruise sets sail six weeks from today. I must provide for the cats, order new shoes and a colourful touch or two from Toast. That shouldn’t be too difficult. But after a year of enclosure, the slightest venture into the outside world is enormously stressful – and this one isn’t slight. I must also make an appointment to have somebody do something about my hair.

 

Rachel rang up. She was very pleased by an acknowledgement of her daughter Hellie in a recent book, “Mirror Land” by Carole Johnstone. It’s “Gothic”, praised by Stephen King. I’ve bought it, feeling I deserved some relief from “I Vicere”, and enjoyed the acknowledgement of Hellie in my turn. I wish I could read it in one gulp and then go back to more serious stuff, but it’s a bit too long for that. Shandy, I have been much tempted by the new biography of Barbara Pym and am sorry to hear it’s not well written. They’re reading it on the radio in the night, but I’m not alert enough in the dark hours for critical judgment.

 

Another beautiful day, and this time it’s getting a bit warmer. I got once around the garden with Archie, but the total so far is only 1959 steps. Still feeling feeble, but not dizzy.

 

I’ve fallen into the old trap of leaving myself too much Italian to do on a Friday evening. A whole canto of Dante. And I must look up some steeple-chasing vocabulary: my tutor is a devoted feminist, and will enjoy talking about Rachael Blackmore who has just become the first woman to win the Grand National. (The horse was named Minella Times, and should perhaps be mentioned.) I like her for not being a Hillary Clinton about it – she is as pleased as any human being would be, having won the National, and that’s as far as she goes. Although in fact it was a considerable feminist achievement – she beat the boys at their own game, fair and square.

 

I made a start on the all-over Fair Isle pattern on the body of wee Hamish’s Calcutta Cup vest. It’s too soon to say whether I like the way it’s going.

 

Here’s the Razzamatazz sweater I mentioned yesterday:

 

I learned a lot, doing that one, which prepared me for Kaffe when he came along later. “Glorious Knitting” would have to be included in my short-list of Influential Knitting Books. Perhaps I’ll go ahead and try to write them down. I don’t think I know “Wild Knitting”, Lisa. Perhaps I should investigate.

 

Thank you for your cruise-knitting advice. I want to travel as light as possible, but there’s no point in being obsessive about it. And I have a pair of socks, years old, which could do with being finished.

 

Reading

 

I’ve moved a bit forward with “I Vicere”, but not much.

 

I think I have always regarded that passage in “Mansfield Park” as just another bit of Mrs-Norris-ery. She diagnoses the gardener’s grandson sight-unseen (ague); accepts a choice cutting; promises a valueless ague-healing charm. (But did she ever send it?) A busy know-it-all who never actually puts herself out for anyone.

 

I’ve been a bit feeble today, perhaps even a bit dizzy again. Helen’s husband David came to walk me around the garden. I haven’t seen him for months, and won’t again for many more. He seems surprisingly cheerful. 2206 steps – better than I expected.

 

Tamar, thank you. You’re right, of course. I had two thoughts, however: 1) Things must have been most different, in those days before doctors could do anything except recommend bed rest and lots of fluids. 2) Are we entirely different, nowadays? Are not relics of the saints and other “good luck charms” of one sort or another, occasionally left with the very ill?

 

Helen and her family are safely back from Kirkmichael (see above), where they had a good time. The weather continues as before, dry and sunny and chilly. It is good to have her toiling away in the study again, although I don’t see her all day (she brings a packed lunch).

 

I knit stoutly on, and have finished the Calcutta Cup band on wee Hamish’s vest. I then spent some time considering colours and all-over pattern with which to proceed. (Some people plan their knitting properly before they begin.) I found McGregor’s “Fair Isle Knitting” – it was my fault, for leaving it in the dining room; not Michaela’s. The all-over pattern I want to use from here on has four fewer stitches per side than are employed at the moment. Delete them? I have decided no; I’ll have a four-stitch unpatterned stripe running up each side.

 

I also found, in the same place, Pam Dawson’s “Knitting Fashion” from 1976, one of the major books in my knitting formation. It might be mildly interesting to catalogue the others. I knit the “Razzamatazz jersey” on page 75 for Rachel when she was about to go up to Cambridge to read classics – it said “O tempora o mores” on one side, and, in Greek, “Give me a place to stand” on the other. The latter a quotation from Archimedes, I think, with reference to the fulcrum: “Give me a place to stand and I will move the world.”

 

Little else to report. I’ve heard from the nursery that the plants I ordered are on their way – so the scam mentioned yesterday was certainly a scam. I’ve pressed on with “I vicere” – we’ve now reached the younger in-laws.

 

Miscellaneous, comments

 

Thank you for your help with knitCompanion, Maureen. I will continue to hold back for a while, out of sheer sloth, but I’m tempted.

 

Mary Lou, I know that brioche is hell to disentangle if you make a mistake (and I make lots of mistakes). But on the other hand, when it’s going well, it’s wonderful. Squishy, I think is the word. The sensible thing to do would be to take socks to knit on the cruise – that’s what I always used to do, in the days when my husband and I went to London three or four times a year for art and grandchildren. And even a bit before that, when I went to the USofA once or twice a year, to see my mother when she was too weak to travel. In those days I’d knock off half a dozen pairs a year without trying.

 

Well, we’ll see.

 

Tamar: Mrs Norris??? Witchcraft?? And Fanny knew?? Please tell all. I thought I knew that book well. I am impressed by how much information you have been able to glean from family trees.

 

It has been another cold, bright, beautiful day. One good thing about such weather is that it makes spring last a bit longer. I did my solitary walk – 2768 steps. That’s a bit better. And I got some, not all, of the things on today’s list done. Water (for the front step) is awfully heavy.

 

One of my assignments today was to find the pattern for Carol Sunday’s two-colour brioche cowl which I bought, along with the wool, a year ago, in preparation for the first of our cancelled cruises. I found it. I’m not sure I feel up to it. The beginning sounds awfully difficult. I had a look at Marchant’s two-colour brioche book. So many of her stitch patterns are so interesting that I don’t see why I don’t just use the yarn to knit one of her scarves. The cast-on doesn’t sound quite as daunting, either (although I would still have to devote a few days to it before the cruise, just to be sure I was well started). And that would avoid the decision Sunday starts off with: whether to give everything a Moebius twist as soon as it has been cast on, to create an “eternity cowl”, or just knit a tube.

 

The Calcutta Cup has advanced a bit, but seems slow. I’m sure things will speed up as soon as this band is finished. Fair Isle is easy and pleasant to knit, but I don’t want to encumber myself with all the colours, on the cruise.

 

If Mrs Sturgeon lets us go. I wouldn’t say it’s yet in the bag.

 

Miscellaneous

 

I move forward with “I Vicere”. The author has finished introducing all of the late Princess’s children, and moved on to her in-laws – the brothers and sister of her late husband. I’m beginning to get the hang of it. Again -- this is not a first attempt.

 

The newspaper announces today that all the adults on Fair Isle have been vaccinated.

 

Does anyone know anything about an app called KnitCompanion? Somehow or other you feed your pattern into your iPad and it keeps your place on the chart and tells you when to increase or decrease. It might be too complicated for me – technical mastery is slipping away, along with physical strength.

 

I had our new scam this week – a text message to my telephone to say that my package was being held at the depot because I needed to pay a small sum, which was named. Like everybody else in the world I am expecting a package, some more bedding plants for the front step, but I feel safe in disregarding this message.

 

Another chill but glorious day. I hobbled around the garden all by myself. 1892 steps – not very good. Helen and her family are safely in Kirkmichael. She sent me a little video of the quince tree which used to live in a pot on the doorstep here. It went to Kirkmichael last year, since it was obviously failing here. It looks very well indeed, at the moment.

 

I made a little list this morning of Things I Must Do, and got them all done except for watering the doorstep plants. That will have to be top of tomorrow’s list.

 

And I’m nearly halfway through the Calcutta Cup band on wee Hamish’s vest. I carefully put the knitting away when Michaela was here yesterday, so that she wouldn’t tidy it away in a fashion that confused its yarn with all the other yarns lying about, but I neglected to secure MacGregor’s “Fair Isle Knitting” in the same way, and it has disappeared, presumably into a pile of books. I want it for the overall pattern upon which I will soon embark. I have other works on my shelves which would probably offer something, and Michaela might be back anyway before I need it.

 

And speaking of works on my shelves, I had a look at Mary Thomas, both vols. She has “corrugated knitting” in the indices of both – but that’s something different. Vertical stripes of two colours; she suggests three stitches each. With the floats in the back pulled fairly snug, so that the fabric actually corrugates. But there’s no purling involved. She may have corrugated ribbing in there somewhere but I’m not going to spend time looking for it.

 

Miscellaneous

 

Tamar, that’s quite a good idea, to write out a family tree in the case of long, well-populated novels. Except that if the author is good enough, there’s no need. I never feel any confusion in Mansfield Park. I’m making some progress with this new attempt at “I Vicere”. In the first pages, the old princess has just died, and there’s a lot of coming and going and confusion until after the funeral. Then the author sets to work telling us about each of her six children, and there are some cousins, too – and things are becoming clearer.

 

Cats: my husband said that his cat Plush was touchingly glad to see him when he came home from the war, although the cat had been living peacefully in the country with my husband’s mother and his sister all the while. It’s worth worrying about what will happen when the cat’s household is broken up by death. I think Perdita will be all right – stout and disagreeable as she is, Archie loves her and the rest of Helen’s family is well disposed (including the dog). Paradox is more of a problem, pretty and furry and affectionate though she is.

 

Another day, chilly but wonderful. I got around the garden by myself. 2484 steps – the telefonino is in generous mood today. Helen and her family (husband, Archie, Fergus, dog) have gone off to Kirkmichael. I’m all by myself for a couple of days.

 

I’ve made some progress with the Calcutta Cup on wee Hamish’s vest. There is a strange pleasure in knitting letters or numbers or images – lacking the pleasant rhythm of traditional Fair Isle patterns, one feels one can’t be getting much of anywhere – and suddenly it makes sense.

 

For reading, I pressed on with “The Viceroys”. But despite this being my third or fourth attempt, I’m still finding the proliferation of characters confusing. The setting is only a few years after that of “Il Gattopardo”, although in Catania, not Palermo. But that doesn’t help.

 

I’m sorry that no one so far has been as enchanted as I am by the cat story in the New Yorker. The cat has come home; it took him weeks. (This is the preface to an article about how animals navigate.) He is tired and dirty and hungry. But he wants to see his daddy. The writer of the article, who is living in the house where the cat used to live, emails a picture of him to Brooklyn – “Is this Billy?” --, and Daddy comes up the I-84 as fast as he can. “The cat, who had been pacing continuously, took one look and leaped into Phil’s arms – literally hurled himself the several feet necessary to be bundled into his erstwhile owner’s chest. Phil, a six-foot-tall bartender of the badass variety, promptly started to cry. After a few minutes of mutual adoration, the cat hopped down, devoured the food I had put out two hours earlier, lay down in a sunny patch of grass by the door, purring, and embarked on an elaborate bath.”

 

Another chill but beautiful day. C. and I got once around the garden. 2539 steps – not bad, for a day of inactivity. I think I feel fine, after my second vaccination. I certainly slept better last night.

 

I’ve finished the corrugated rib at the bottom of wee Hamish’s Calcutta Cup sweater, and have embarked on the Cup itself, not without a certain amount of tinking. But I think I’m on the right path now.

 

I’ve finished Roy Strong’s diaries. The energy of the man astounds.

 

Do you have the New Yorker for April 5 – the most recent, I think? Please read the first page of the scientific article on page 22. The article is about the interesting question of how animals (and birds and insects) navigate, but the opening anecdote is not just about navigation but also about love, and I find it very touching. Cats are rarely given credit for being the affectionate animals they are.

 

Comments

 

I feel fairly sure, Tamar, that EZ started “Woolgathering” because editors were making her re-write Aran patterns for flat knitting. My memory of Mary Thomas is that she was in the flat-knitting camp from the start. I’ll have a look tomorrow.

 

Chris, you’re right that Etna is relatively active, as volcanoes go, but that might not rule it out entirely from inclusion in our current group. It’s just outside Catania, where Archie and I were on our most recent Italian trip. It was certainly a quiet lump when we drove past it. There’s no suggestion on Google that Vesuvius is feeling restless (it’s near-by, in geographical terms). Its last major eruption was during the war; I met people who remember that one, when I was taking school trips to that part of Italy.

 

I had my second Covid vaccination this morning. All well so far. I haven’t got a medal or a certificate or anything. The dr said that the Scottish government is thinking about what to do, and meanwhile my record is safe with the GP. And the great thing about a Majestic Line cruise (assuming C. and I really do get to set sail in late May) is that you can set out that morning without anything (except your cruise clothes) – you just turn up and say Hello, I’m Jean.

 

I thought that was enough for today, despite Helen’s disapproval (she had driven me to the appointment). 1522 steps, anyway. Not too bad, for total inactivity.

 

We all continue to surprise ourselves by how sad we feel about the loss of the Duke of Edinburgh. Catdownunder, I was very touched by your blog entry – what a wonderful story! But I forgot to go out on the front step at noon – I’m sure I would have been able to hear the 41-gun-salute from the Castle. I slept badly last night (that doesn't often happen), listening to the World Service talking about him. I'll be glad for tonight's sleep.

 

I am knitting boldly forward. I think my preference, for corrugated rib, is to change colours – if you’re going to – for the knit stitches. This time I did it on the purls, as I had read somewhere that that was the Proper Way. I have introduced a touch of pink which looks, at the moment, a bit girly, but I am confident that once the other colours get into play it will be all right. I have heard – I think this was in McGregor’s “Fair Isle Knitting” – that there is something about corrugated rib in Mary Thomas’ Knitting Book. I mean to have a look. She is not to be trusted, however, on traditional knitting of any sort. She was interested in fashionable knitting, in separate pieces, carefully sewn together. And why not?

 

Reading

 

I proceed with Roy Strong. I don’t know where to turn. My tutor suggests Elsa Morante. I gather it’s cold in Rome, too. This morning’s paper says that the vineyards in France are in despair.

 

General

 

I haven’t looked at a map, let alone a globe – but is it significant that volcanoes are in action in Iceland, Sicily (Etna) and now St Vincent in the Caribbean?

 

Well.

 

I had just got back from my solitary walk around the garden, at midday, and put my head around the mosaic workroom door to let them know that I had safely completed the circuit, and isn’t April wonderful? Helen followed me back down the passage to say that the Duke of Edinburgh was dead; I got back into the workroom with her in time to hear the national anthem – a graver and more solemn version than the one they play in the middle of the night, when Radio Four hands over to the World Service. Both of us were surprised at how sad we felt, and feel.

 

Various thoughts:

 

n  By now, 4 pm British Summer Time, Biden’s silence has become conspicuous. We heard from the Taoiseach hours ago, in case bloody Irishness is the problem. And also from George W. Bush, in case it’s a matter of the time difference. One has responsibilities as a head of state, and I think Biden has flubbed this one.

n  I remember the wedding. The time difference meant that I could listen to a bit of it, towards the end, before setting out towards Asbury Park High School.

n  The Duke’s famous “slitty-eyed” remark is a family legend. James was the UPI Beijing correspondent at the time, very junior. The Duke’s remark was made to British students at a private session. James got wind of it, and talked to various people who had been there, and put it at the head of his story. A very grand reporter walked through the press room at the end of the day and said to James, who was still laboriously tapping out his story, “What are you leading with, Sonny?” [I don’t suppose he actually said “Sonny”, but it was implied.]

James told him.

 

None of us know whether the story was James’s scoop, but we all like to think so.

 

Still cold, and very blowy – it sounds like a storm out there just now. But the essential cheerfulness of this time of year is pushing itself forward, at the same time. 2727 steps (on the high side, for me) and I did the circuit of the garden all by myself today. Helen was here, but beginning to be seriously worried about her mid-May deadline for the large mosaic she's working on.

 

I pressed ahead after yesterday’s desk-work, and cast on wee Hamish’s Calcutta Cup vest. It seems large, which is preferable to seeming small. This is a particularly difficult problem, sizing-wise, since he needs to be able to wear it on Calcutta Cup day next year (Feb or March). And he’s a hefty lad.

 

I hoped my fingers would have remembered how to do corrugated rib, but they didn’t. I turned to Youtube – how did we ever manage life, before Youtube? – and took the first offering under “corrugated rib”. She was no one I knew, and rather endearing for clumsiness, and went straight for what I suspect is the single most important tip: carry the colour you are going to purl in your dominant hand. Doing it that way, I am still achingly slow, but I am making progress.

 

Some time many decades ago, when I first got started on Fair Isle knitting (all from books), I think I attempted corrugated rib, and gave it up because it had no expansivity – I suspect there’s a better word – and I thought I was doing it wrong. Now in these days of Youtube I know that flatness is what is to be expected.

 

I’m finishing the fourth round, at the moment. I had intended to do the ribbing entirely in two colours, but why not branch out? I was surprised to discover (twice today, but how?) that colour changes should be done with the purl colour. I still have (and can still find) my aborted first attempt at Alexander’s Calcutta Cup vest – see yesterday – and there I have changed the knit colour. I doubt if it matters much.

 

Reading

 

I am pressing on with Roy Strong – after spending all that money, I pretty well have to. He’s enormously energetic, even – or perhaps especially – after his beloved wife died when he was still in his late 60’s. He keeps mentioning that other famous people are becoming fat or flabby or shabby (if not actually dying). He works hard to save himself from those fates, even to the point of having a personal trainer.

 

I’ll remember May Sarton (I hope), and have a look. Ambermog (comment yesterday) thank you for Elizabeth Jane Howard and the Cazalet Chronicles. I’ve heard of her, but have never read. Wasn’t she married to Kingsley Amis for a while?

 

No score today: I neglected to plug the telephone in last night.

 

It’s still bitterly cold. Archie and I got once around the garden.

 

I did, however, fulfil my resolution to get started on wee Hamish’s Calcutta Cup vest. I’ve done the preliminary calculations, and am ready to cast on, fully prepared to start again if the first attempt doesn’t work. My most recent, and most successful, Calcutta Cup vest – for Alexander, in what must have been 2018 – was preceded by much industrious swatching (resulting in a “swatch scarf” for Ketki). And despite all that, my first attempt was grotesquely too large. I took out a whole pattern repeat, and started again from the beginning. Much better.

 

Chloe, yes, I have a knitting app of some sort – I’ve forgotten its name, and haven’t used it for a long time. But I think I’d rather engage mind and hand on this problem. There were moments this morning, indeed, when I realised I should have left one more blank column between the Cup and the date, when I would have been glad to just slide one or the other over a space. But it’s done now.

 

For the rest of the time today, I just knit stripes.

 

Reading

 

Kristen, yes, I read “Speak, Memory” long ago, and enjoyed it very much. It was in my Christmas stocking one year in Kirkmichael – because I had put it there myself. All I can specifically remember was my surprise at the fact that when he was forced into exile – this is Nabokov we are talking about – in his late teens or even early twenties, he was afraid of losing his grasp of the Russian language. I wonder if the book is still on the shelf in Kirkmichael?

 

Yesterday I settled for the most recent volume of Roy Strong’s diaries, but I’m not enjoying it as much as I did the preceding volume (and also it was much more expensive). All of his posh friends keep dying of unpleasant diseases, and he has lots of posh friends. Often the diaries seem little more than lists of them, attending one grand function after another.

 

Thank you for May Sarton. The name is completely unfamiliar to me (I think). I’ll have a look.

 

All well, more or less. It’s still bitterly cold. 2450 steps – not too bad, by my dim standards. Archie and I got once around the garden. Helen took half an hour off mosaic-making to plant up the pots on my front step. She is worried about how slowly her work is going.

 

The yarn arrived from Jamieson & Smith (and is beautiful). I hope I will photograph it for you tomorrow. And tomorrow I must abandon peaceful stripe-knitting in order to chart and count stitches for wee Hamish’s Calcutta Cup vest. It’s no use “1” being a digit that doesn’t take up much space, because “2” is one of the biggies. It’s tempting to start with the legwarmers, for which the pattern has been done for me, and therefore much of the counting. But they’ll probably have to be knit with dp’s, and that is just off-putting enough to keep my nose to the grindstone.

 

No, the main problem today is, what to read? I thought I had the answer this morning when someone in the paper recommended Len Deighton, of whom I have never read a syllable. (And who is alive and well in his 90’s, I am happy to report.) But it turns out that Penguin is just about to bring out a whole lot of him as Modern English Classics, and meanwhile, what am I going to read today?

 

I think I’ve largely, or entirely, finished Trollope. I downloaded Mrs Gaskell’s “Ruth” (it was free) but don’t think I’m going to be able to go on with it. Would “Mary Barton” be any better? I plucked Nabokov’s “Pale Fire” from my own shelf but it’s too convoluted and disturbed for my current mood. I’ll have to fall back on biography, diaries or letters at this rate.

 

The solution for knitting (once planning and counting are behind me) turns out to be “Il Gattopardo”. I have the Audible recording from of old. I like the man who’s reading it to me. And I know the book so well that I can follow it easily. I don’t suppose it does much for my spoken Italian, but it’s soothing, and that’s all I care about just now.

 

Here we are: another week. Helen is back at work in the study, reports her husband to be well, the dog very glad to see him. She brought her middle son Mungo, the Arabist, with her today, and we walked a small distance to see some street art. 2187 steps. Could be worse.

 

Very cold today. The family reports snow from Loch Fyne and south London; none here.

 

And I knit a bit of the Shetland striped sweater mentioned in the sidebar. I think I started it not long after finishing last year’s successful yellow EPS, wanting something colourful for solstice knitting, and then got diverted by the forthcoming-ness of all these great-grandchildren. And it will of course be interrupted again by Calcutta Cup knitting – no one would have expected that, in an odd-numbered year! Meanwhile it’s a peaceful occupation – three-row stripes selected at random from a bag of Uradale Farm yarn. I seem to have assumed at the beginning that calculations could be carried over from the previous sweater – and, indeed, it looks a plausible size.

 

Reading: I have carried on with “The Viceroys”. Audible, wonderfully, is not synchronised with my Kindle this time, so that I can, as hoped, read ahead in Italian, and then listen until I’ve caught up. I like the man who’s reading to me. Maybe I’ll finish, this time. But it’s a very long book. I feel I need something soothing for the times when I am less intellectually ambitious, but haven't found it yet.

 

Between Me and You, comment Saturday: thank you for the tip. Maybe that could be tomorrow’s expedition with Archie. I’m sorry to hear that McAree Brothers is gone. It was a good (LYS) shop, and I didn’t go there as often as I ought to have. Arne and Carlos were even there once, and I didn’t go. I had had a long, hard day of hospital visiting – but still, I was a lot stronger then than I am now. I did hear them once, “in person”, at the National Museum of Scotand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A bit dim today – I might have gone on to bed, but for your invitation to pontificate on grammar: irresistible.

 

C. came, and we walked once around the garden (2196 steps so far), pausing to harvest some wild garlic leaves to make a crust for my lunchtime lamb cutlets. I haven’t done much else. Shandy, I started to try to find Wives and Daughters on Youtube and got diverted to the Vatican. I think I have acquired a plenary indulgence by being there for the Pope’s blessing Urbi et Orbi. His henchman specifically said that receiving the blessing through modern media counted just as much as being in St Peter’s.

 

Otherwise a quiet day. No knitting. Alexander rang up, and we had a good time discussing the forthcoming election. You can’t imagine how much I am enjoying myself. I always took an interest, of course, and sometimes tried to guide my husband one way or another, without much success. But this time – I’ve got a vote! It makes such a difference. I live in an interesting constituency, according to the BBC – that helps a good deal.

 

Now, grammar. You’re all right, starting with your nun, Mary Lou. You don’t need me. In the Agnus Dei, we are addressing the Lamb of God, “You who take away…” Or “taketh..” if you prefer -- that's a specific second person singular ending. Chris, I think that to involve the Trinity here is more weight than English grammar can bear.

 

I learned grammar from my mother (“If you imply what I infer/ You’re brighter than I thought you were.”) who presumably got it from her mother. Her father – my maternal grandfather – moved his lips while reading, and is unlikely to have been the source of much grammar. His wife had been a teacher for a few years before succumbing to matrimony. She came from a clever family – the chemistry lab at Mount Holyoke is named for her sister Emma. I remember her, of course, but only as a grandmotherly presence. I wish I had paid more attention.

Tamar (comment yesterday) I will remember what you say. I don't like to bother a doctor just now.

 

I felt very odd yesterday – dizzy, and with my sight somewhat occluded, as if I were about to faint. I spent most of the day in bed, and ate little. I surprised myself by how close to “normal” I feel today – I didn’t think I had that much bounce-back-factor left. C. came, and we got once around the garden. 2648 steps – the telefonino is clearly in generous mood.

 

My tutor didn’t feel well, so we didn’t have an Italian lesson this morning. A great relief.

 

Helen’s husband David is presumably here, from Thessaloniki. We haven’t seen him for a long time – and I won’t for a while, as he self-isolates with his family. I have read horror stories in the paper recently of six-hour queues for immigration at Heathrow, because of all the Covid paperwork involved, and feared that he would miss the last train. But I had an email last night to say that he was on it, and it seems safe to assume that all is well.

 

I’ve heard from Jamieson & Smith – my order is on the way. They don’t hang about, up there in Lerwick. I ought to be calculating and charting wee Hamish’s vest, but I haven’t got beyond being glad that “1” takes up less space than any other digit (as in “21” which will appear next to my clumsy rendition of the cup).

 

I spent some useful time tidying piles of paper-magazines-books on the shelf underneath what might be grandly called the coffee table in the sitting room, in search of the four issues of Knitter’s from 2000 in which Meg elaborates the EPS sweater. I didn’t put them away as I should have, after the successful EPS recently knit. I found them all, and they are now on the shelf where they belong. I haven’t done any actual knitting.

 

I’ve finished “Wives and Daughters”. It sort of peters out, because Mrs Gaskell died, but not before the happy ending is clearly adumbrated. I do agree with you, Tamar, that such endings are essential, and I also liked your additional remark, that medical mysteries need to be solved. I have tentatively started, for the third or fourth time, reading “The Viceroys” in Italian. That sentence is ambiguous: I’ve never succeeded in finishing it. The idea would be to read a chapter in Italian and then listen to it with Audible, but Audible’s cleverness (see Thursday) makes this difficult. I could listen first and then read, but…

Happy Easter, everybody. We've earned it, I feel.

 

The sun came out, this afternoon – what a difference it makes! I got all the way to the butcher’s shop by myself this morning, slightly further than once around the garden, if the telefonino is to be believed. 2503 steps so far. I got myself some Easter lamb, and some lovely-looking French garlic.

 

The sad news is that the corner shop – the London Street Grocery – has closed. They’ve been open 365 days a year ever since we came to Edinburgh. I remember when their children were born, and on a relatively recent (but pre-Covid) visit, saw the wedding pictures of the eldest of those children – spectacular, in Pakistan. I hope I can find an address, and write a note of farewell.

 

And it means there’s nowhere within my range for fruit and veg. Everything will have to be planned, and included in the order. No more nipping out for a leek or some basil.

 

n  And since I wrote that paragraph, the doctor’s surgery rang up with an appointment for my second vaccination!

As for knitting, I finished tidying the ends away for the Polliwog. I haven’t blocked it. I sent the order to Jamieson and Smith for the yarns for wee Hamish’s Calcutta Cup sweater, and for a leg-warmer kit. Alas! however. They have recently been posting pictures of Shetland, with a selection of five or six yarns for each. But today I found most of them gone. The names of the scenes were still there, and the numbers of the yarns – but no colour to remind one. I’ve spent enough time there recently that I think I remembered the name of the scene I wanted, but I felt I was floundering a bit and have probably ordered more than I can use. 

 

I knit a bit on my EPS in random Shetland stripes, just to have something in my hands. See sidebar.

 

And I both read and listened to “Wives and Daughters”. Audible delighted me by knowing when I’d read a couple of chapters by myself, and starting from that point without being told. Alas, it doesn’t work in the other direction. When I go back to silent reading after some Audible, I have to find the place for myself.