It snowed the other night, almost the first proper snow of winter, so that we awoke to a frozen world. We’ve escaped the worst of the weather so far here in Wick, sheltered as we are by the mountains; it’s as if the really bad storms just give up before they reach us. It helps too that we’re right beside the ocean, and while no one would pretend the North Sea is exactly famous for its sunbathing opportunities, it does exercise a moderating influence. So we’ve had ice and hail and gales and rain and sleet this winter, but not much snow. It’s bitterly cold, though: the wind’s knifing down from the arctic, the scavenging seagulls have a feral, hungry look like extras in a Mad Max movie, and you can see the ducks on the river huddling together miserably, thinking: You mean we migrated all the way from Siberia for this?
None shall pass: before the freeze
There’s something magical, in-the-bleak-midwinter-ish about snow, which always takes me back to my childhood before the original sin really kicked in. There are some beautiful lines by the Scottish singer-songwriter Al Stewart: Do you remember the time we were young?/ Lowly, lowly, low/ Outside the window the frosty moonlight hung/ On the midnight snow. And when I hear those lines, yes, I do remember. (Mind you, it was Al Stewart who also sang, Now winter moans/ in old men’s bones/ as the day falls into dark—when I first heard that in my teens I thought it was just, well, poetry; forty years later I realise it was, regrettably, something of a prophecy…)
Snow-covered nets
In gansey news, as you can see this one’s nearly finished—just the lower sleeve and cuff to go. (I’ve learned however not to underestimate the demoralising effect of a five- or six-inch cuff, which always takes longer than you’d like.) I’ve mentioned before what a pleasure this pattern has been to knit; it just clicks, all the pattern elements complementing each other, cables always fallen on the same pattern repeat. If things go to plan I should finish it later this week, and then it can be blocked into revealing its true pattern.
Snow at South Head
Outside, the snow, frozen overnight and softly thawing through the day, is beginning to freeze again with the coming of night. You can see the frozen footsteps of everyone who’s come to our front door since Saturday morning, which explains why we’re always so excited to see the postman (who wears shorts; welcome to Scotland). So to celebrate the snow’s survival, here’s a superb wee poem by the Chinese poet Bai Juyi, who lived 772-846 (remarkable to think he was broadly contemporary with Charlemagne), called “Night Snow”:
Already surprised to find my quilt and pillow cold I again see pale light shining through the window; The night lies deep and I know the snow is heavy, Sometimes I hear the bamboo crack beneath its weight.
A very happy Burns Night on Monday to all our readers! (Remember, plunge your haggis straight into boiling water so it doesn’t suffer…)
A long time ago—1981—in a galaxy far, far away—Manchester—I was a student at the university. I took my degree in medieval studies, with hilarious consequences for my career prospects: I was unemployed for over a year afterwards. In those days, to qualify for the dole one had to present oneself for a certain number of job interviews every month. I still remember, usually around four in the morning, an excruciating interview with Eagle Star Insurance in Northampton, that began, “So, Mr Reid, perhaps you could begin by explaining how a degree in, what was it, let me see, ah yes, medieval history, qualifies you for a career in the field of modern, ahaha, insurance?”.
But a career isn’t everything, and some experiences are beyond price. One late winter afternoon we medieval studiesists were taken down to the basement of the John Rylands Library, where they housed the rare books collection. It was a horrible, bleak midwinter day, rain and sleet and blustery wind. We entered the reading room—it was closed to readers just then—a cavernous, echoing space in semi-darkness. The overhead lights were turned off, but the curators had lit—I want to say candles, but it must have been spot lights—to shine on the central tables, which gleamed like the treasure in Aladdin’s cave. When we got closer, we saw that arranged on the tables, and weighted to lie open, was a collection of books of medieval illuminated manuscripts.
Sign of Spring: Burgeoning snowdrops
To qualify as “illuminated”, the decoration must be real gold or silver. The lights reflected off the gold leaf, filling the room with a shimmering golden glow. I’d only ever seen reproductions before, I had no idea they were contoured like that (the gold leaf sits on a slightly raised foundation of plaster, called gesso, to better catch the light). I’d never seen anything so beautiful, possibly still haven’t: these were books that existed in four dimensions (length, width and depth, plus time); but for me they also had a fifth dimension, that of wonder. I was utterly captivated, hypnotised. In the end, it took three porters and a policeman to finally drag me away. Back outside, the streets felt a lot darker and colder.
Patterns in Ice
There’s an obvious connection with ganseys here: the rich, fine detail, the sheer three-dimensional tactile texture that pictures can’t ever quite capture. Sooner or later I’m going to get delusions of grandeur and decorate one with gold leaf, as if Goldfinger had swapped international villainy for the quieter life of a herring fisherman. Meanwhile, I’m nearing the end of my current project, and have reached the cuff on the first sleeve. You’ll observe that I’m patterning the sleeve all the way down, not just on the upper arm. I don’t usually do this because (a) traditionally it wasn’t the norm, and (b) typically by this stage I’m all patterned out, and a splash of plain knitting feels like a treat. But this is a much smaller gansey than I usually knit, and I’m not confident about the sleeve measurements: by extending the pattern all the way to the cuff, with the pulling-in effect created by the cables etc., we should have an element of flexibility when we block it, expanding or contracting the sleeve to get a better fit (I hope!).
Interference on the Line
Life’s a funny old game, isn’t it? After a year or so of unemployment, I applied for a cataloguing temp job with the local Record Office. At my job interview the head archivist said, “Were you aware that your degree in medieval studies—all that medieval Latin, palaeography, and land law—gives you half the qualifications you need to be an archivist…?” Reader, I was not. The rest is—literally—history. I’ve not encountered any more medieval illuminations in my work, though there’ve been plenty of other manuscripts, some of them indeed medieval—but it’s not been altogether without illumination, for all that…
I was reading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire this week—call me a pessimist, but I’m beginning to suspect it doesn’t have a happy ending—and I was interested to learn in chapter nine that women’s fidelity is frequently undermined by “licentious spectacles”. That sounds fun, I thought; I wonder if I can persuade the optician to prescribe me a pair at my next appointment? (*Ba-dum, tish!*) Yes, it’s another lockdown, remarkably similar to all the other lockdowns only this time with added ice, and we’re just going to have to get through it the best we can.
Cable on the quay
Last year there was a meme doing the rounds, a quote from the movie Men in Black. Will Smith (Agent J) has declared that people are smart and Tommy Lee Jones (Agent K) corrects him: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals.” But, you know what? Persons can be pretty dumb too. Let me offer myself as Exhibit—or Agent—A. Before Christmas I went to fill up at the gas station. I carefully put on disposable gloves before I went, to ensure I didn’t directly touch any surface that might be contaminated. I drove up to the pump, got out and inserted my bank card into the slot. But I couldn’t type my PIN with the glove on. So—and I want you to follow me closely here—I removed my glove, entered my PIN, licked my finger to better replace my card in my wallet, filled up with petrol, and only then realised I still had my glove in my other hand, and the tip of my index finger looking suspiciously clean and pink. Sigh. I expect the CCTV footage of that incident is on Facebook by now, along with that tragic guy at the convenience store who takes his glove off and holds it in his mouth while fishing for his wallet…
Stranded pancakes
In gansey news, the rapid progress continues. I’ve finished the front and back, joined the shoulders, completed the collar and picked up stitches around the armhole of the first sleeve. I know it’s a smaller gansey than I usually knit, but the pictures are deceptive: the cables and all the purl stitches actually make it some four inches narrower than it will be once it’s been washed and blocked. (I’m sure it’ll be fine, so long as the recipient doesn’t want to, as it were, breathe.) I’ll say more about the sleeves next time, but it’s the exact same pattern as the body, just inverted.
Turnstones on the harbour wall
Finally this week, I’d like to share with you a quote, which is sort of a riposte to Agent K above. It’s from the movie Harvey, the one where the amiable Elwood P Dowd, marvellously played by James Stewart, is accompanied everywhere by a giant invisible rabbit. At one point Dowd explains his philosophy: “Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be’—she always called me Elwood—’In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.” And to be honest, especially after my gas station experience, so do I…
And so here’s the new year, all unwrapped and shiny and ready to go—or it would be, only this year the batteries don’t seem to’ve been included. (To misquote St Jethro of Tull, it was a new year yesterday but it’s an old year now…) But then, I’ve never been much of a lad for Hogmanay. This may of course stem from a bout of food poisoning I contracted one memorable New Year’s Eve in my childhood, after which I was a little surprised not so much to find I still had a stomach lining, but that I still had lungs. (If I’m ever visited by three spirits to teach me the error of my ways, the Ghost of Hogmanay Past had better bring a mop and a couple of buckets.) Besides, given I was born eleven thousand miles away, I can’t help remembering each year that technically my New Year already happened twelve hours ago.
Pancake ice in the river
The origins of Hogmanay, like those of most traditions, are lost in the mists of time. No one even knows where the name comes from, though the most likely bet derives from the French hoginane, meaning a gala day (and not a rather fatuous pig, as I’d first thought). After the Reformation the Scots didn’t really observe Christmas until about 1950, and instead put all their energies into making drinking an olympic sport every New Year’s Eve. Most of the old Hogmanay customs have since gone the way of the horseless carriage and the VHS tape, and it’s not hard to see why: for example in places where the traditional New Year ceremony “would involve people dressing up in the hides of cattle and running around the village whilst being hit by sticks”, presumably the supply of sticks gave out, or possibly the supply of people. You can see how staying in and watching television instead might appeal.
Ice on the path
In gansey news, I’ve made spectacular progress: in fact I’ve completed the lower body as far as the half-gussets, and am well advanced up the back. (Not bad for a fortnight!) It helps of course that this is so much smaller than the ganseys I usually knit. I return to work this week, so my knitting time will be considerably reduced (as will the number of hours I can devote to listening to Bruckner symphonies, alas and alack and Alaska). And now you can see more of the pattern I think you’ll agree this is one of the very best.
Calm day at the riverside
And speaking as someone who’s never gone in for new year’s resolutions—resolution not being something I’m usually associated with, along with speed over distance or a waistline—this year I made one: to do whatever it takes to make it to next New Year’s Eve (God willing). We’ve made it through this far; let’s not do anything foolish now. So here’s to a happy and safe 2021; at the end of which even I might raise a dram to celebrate Hogmanay in style…
It snowed the other night, almost the first proper snow of winter, so that we awoke to a frozen world. We’ve escaped the worst of the weather so far here in Wick, sheltered as we are by the mountains; it’s as if the really bad storms just give up before they reach us. It helps too that we’re right beside the ocean, and while no one would pretend the North Sea is exactly famous for its sunbathing opportunities, it does exercise a moderating influence. So we’ve had ice and hail and gales and rain and sleet this winter, but not much snow. It’s bitterly cold, though: the wind’s knifing down from the arctic, the scavenging seagulls have a feral, hungry look like extras in a Mad Max movie, and you can see the ducks on the river huddling together miserably, thinking: You mean we migrated all the way from Siberia for this?
None shall pass: before the freeze
Snow-covered nets
Snow at South Head
