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As regular readers will know by now, occasionally I have more than one gansey on the needles at one time—especially if the main gansey is very ornate or in a dark colour, when it’s relaxing to alternate with something simpler, or lighter. This is a gansey I’ve been working on for several months. It is, of course, the classic Scarborough pattern. But what makes this one a little special is that it’s made out of a variety of leftover yarns I’ve accumulated down the years: a mixture of Frangipani (about 60%, five separate dye lots), British Breeds, Wendy’s, Classic Elite Yarns and Island on the Edge. And here’s the thing: as I was knitting it, the assorted dye lots and yarns stood out “like a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake” (in Raymond Chandler’s wonderful simile), but as soon as it was washed and blocked, they virtually disappeared. You’d hardly know it wasn’t all the same yarn and dye lot. It’s a sort of alchemy. It fits me perfectly too, and somehow the fact that it was, in a sense, free, only makes it more fun to wear. Next week we’ll start the year by revisiting some familiar Caithness patterns.
 Northamptonshire lane And now it’s time for the traditional Gansey Nation Christmas Singalong (stop sobbing at the back). We’re not featuring a carol this year, since Christmas is so last week, but instead turn our minds to Gilbert & Sullivan, and their overlooked operetta, The Knitters of Knaresborough:
Oh, I am the very model of
a modern gansey knitter
A finished gansey jumper sets
the knitting world a-twitter,
Short of going jogging there
is nothing makes you fitter,
Oh, I am the very model of
a modern gansey knitter.
I knit patterns from the Hebrides,
old Whitby town and Flamborough,
From Filey and from Eyemouth and the
Lizard and from Musselburgh,
From Thurso and Seahouses, Wick,
Robin Hood’s Bay and Scarborough,
(My shoulder straps are quite ornate
or else they’re ridge and furrow).
 Christmas Cosmos The fishermen when out at sea
would don a plainish gansey,
But those they wore on Sundays were
spectacularly fancy,
A fisher lass went overboard
knitting for her fiancé;
The patterns are so intricate
they look like necromancy.
There’s marriage lines and heapies,
chevrons, diamonds and cables,
Print o’ the hoof and anchors, and
yarn-overs if you’re able,
There’s moss stitch, ladders, tree of life,
there’s zigzags and there’s herringbone,
(The yarn is guernsey five-ply, there’s
500 grams on every cone).
The patterns on the front and on
the back are quite identical,
So you can wear them backwards and
be smart for the conventicle,
The Humber keel men had a star with
five points in a pentacle,
Some disagree that necks were shaped
(the question’s ecumenical).
 Foggy Dew Oh, I am the very model of
a modern gansey knitter,
It helps you keep your temper cool
and stops you getting bitter,
If your sister wore one in the dock
the jury would acquit her,
You’ll end up getting tons of likes
when posting pics on Twitter,
But make sure that it’s genuine,
not from a counterfeiter,
You can sparkle in the sunshine if
you sprinkle it with glitter,
Ohhh… I am the very model of
a modern gansey knitter!
[With apologies to, well, just about everybody, really]
Wishing all our readers a very Happy (and safe) New Year!
 And here we are, the Mrs Laider/Mrs Laidlaw gansey finished just in time for Christmas. I don’t really have much to say other than that I’m really pleased with it, and it just goes to show how creative you can be in combining patterns and still be confident that the end result will look stunning. And what a great colour Frangipani Denim is, and how well it always seems to show the patterns to their best effect. Next week, a one-off project that has me smirking with quiet satisfaction.
I had my neck scan in Inverness this week. The good news is that the lumps the surgeons spotted last week appear to be perfectly normal lymphy-type things. The bad news? Well, stop me if you’ve heard this before, but while she was looking the doctor discovered a hitherto-unsuspected growth on my thyroid. These are usually benign, she said, but she just wanted to take a sample to get it checked out. That was when my day, which till then was up there with the last act of Singin’ in the Rain in terms of happy endings, suddenly turned into something even Thomas Hardy might have rejected as too gloomy.
 Christmas Decoration Bombing The scan itself was a breeze, though the sensation of the scanner sliding over my neck on its film of cold jelly put me in mind of princess Leia being slobbered over by Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi (I was wondering why they made me wear that gold bikini instead of the more usual hospital gown), or possibly someone about to be devoured by a many-tentacled horror from the abyss. Then the doctor produced the needle… and, look, if you’re at all squeamish you might want to skip the rest, enjoy the pictures, and rejoin us next week.
Still with me? Well, don’t say you weren’t warned. The needle went in at the base of my throat, and only hurt a little thanks to a local anaesthetic. The initial probe for a sample lasted a minute or so and then the needle was withdrawn, and I thought, well, really that wasn’t so bad. Ha! Turned out she was finding it difficult to reach the right spot, and had to try again. This time it lasted several minutes, and I was aware of both a mounting pain and pressure in my breast (possibly, taking her cue from the dwarves in The Lord of the Rings, she delved too greedily and too deep). I started feeling anxious, then remote, then I blacked out.
 Hawthorn & St Fergus’ When I came to I was on my side, surrounded by concerned medical staff. Apparently the needle had touched a nerve (literally: the vagus nerve to be precise). I’d had something of a seizure (gone rigid and bit my lip so my mouth was bleeding) and fainted. I was sweating so much it soaked through my clothes, the bed, the floor and several floors beneath, prompting an investigation in the basement into burst pipes. I felt woozy and weak, and was sick at regular intervals for the next two and a half hours, by which time the novelty had definitely worn off. I was finally allowed to leave around 4.00pm, pumped full of anti-dizziness and -nausea drugs; given that I’d turned up at 10.30am for a 30-minute appointment, I pretty much felt I’d had my money’s worth. Oh yes, and the icing on the cake? The doctor who checked me over cheerfully opined that I had Menieres disease, which I must say didn’t improve my mood as much as he may have hoped.
 Sunset at Loch Watten But really, what does it matter? The trauma’s already fading, the bruises are too, and I can go into the new year with cautious optimism and only a biopsy or two to worry about. So now let Margaret and me wish all our readers a very safe and happy Christmas, and especially all those health care professionals who’ve kept services going so heroically over the last couple of years. See you next time, and happy knitting!
 “There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something (or so Thorin said to the young dwarves). You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.” That’s a quote from JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit, and it’s been running in my mind these last few days. I’ll explain why in a minute.
 Waves on the Wall I had my microlaryngoscopy—and what a wonderful word that is; if only the procedure was too—down in Inverness last Wednesday. They phoned the day before to say it was being put back four hours, which at least meant I was able to eat an early breakfast at the B&B (not that I had much of an appetite). Then it was a matter of killing time till 11.00am, when I made my way to the ward. I was led to a chair beside an empty bed, where I sat and waited till just after 2.00pm, having my blood pressure taken periodically, listening to my tummy rumbling, and knitting. Turns out bringing something to knit was a godsend, for not only did it help to pass the time, which hung pretty heavy after a while, it also served as an icebreaker for the succession of medical personnel who dropped by to talk to me: an anaesthetist, a surgeon and several nurses (the top two questions, in case you ever find yourself in similar circumstances and wish to be prepared, were, “What are you knitting?” and “How long does it take?”). And all the staff at every stage were great: friendly, informative, sympathetic, attentive and helpful.
 Riverside Hawthorn At last I was taken down to the theatre, a high-tech room that resembled the bridge of the Starship Enterprise with the addition of comfy beds. The procedure was to remove a sample from the lesion on my vocal cords and make a detailed examination of my throat (though not to actually remove the growth yet; that was my mistake). The general anaesthetic was administered by means of a cannula in the back of my hand, and the last thing I was aware of before I drifted off was a cold sensation creeping up my arm. An hour or so later I woke up in the recovery room (using the words woke and up here in their loosest sense), and after a while was wheeled back to the ward. I was still “nil by mouth” for a couple of hours, but since after a general anaesthetic the most my body is up for is more or less keeping my heart beating, that was fine by me. They kept me in till just after 7.00pm, when Margaret came and scooped up the remains and drove them home, which we reached about 10.00pm.
 Tidepools near the Trinkie And now it’s a few days later, and I no longer feel quite as though I’ve just stepped off a boat after a rough crossing—that’s my fourth general anaesthetic, and they always churn me up like a whisk. And so, other than waiting for the results of the biopsy, what happens now? Well, that brings me back to my Hobbit quote. For while they were looking, unfortunately they did indeed find something, or something that looks like it might be something; but until they do some more tests they won’t know what it is, or whether it’s anything to worry about. So it’s back to Inverness this week for a scan of my throat. I probably won’t know the results for a while, and at the moment anything is possible; and so it seems I might be going into the New Year, in Yeats’ eloquent phrase, “dreading and hoping all…”
 Well, this is all happening very fast. The operation to remove a growth on one of my vocal cords is scheduled for later this week in Inverness. With luck I should be out the same day, unless there are complications—the anaesthetist tickling the surgeon at an inadvertent moment, say. I’ve been looking for silver linings, and have realised that at least this means I’ll miss the office Christmas party. (Last time I was regrettably detained with a migraine; next year I may have to fake my own death.)
Snowy fields by the A9 The inner workings of my body have been pretty much a mystery to me since my schooldays. I first realised biology wasn’t for me when I came into class one day and was presented with a scalpel and a frog I hadn’t previously been introduced to, and was instructed to get creative. After seeing the consultant I wasn’t sure what my vocal cords were, or even exactly where they were, so I looked them up online. This proved to be a big mistake, especially when I added the words “growth on” to the search. The images resembled a couple of eels wrestling in a bowl of pink blancmange, the kind of thing that normally only appears above the caption “Alien Autopsy: The Pictures They Didn’t Want You To See”. I hastily closed the browser window and made a note to tick the box on my medical consent form marked “Blissful Ignorance Y/N”.
 Rose Street Christmas Lights, Edinburgh And so I’ve been cracking on with the gansey, not least because it’s a present and has to be finished, washed, blocked and posted in time for Christmas. But I’m also grimly aware of how badly I was affected the previous times I’ve had general anaesthetics, and can’t promise I’ll be able to hold a needle for a couple of days afterwards, let alone knit with one. Still, that’s one sleeve down, one to go, and I continue to be delighted with how well the patterns complement each other and show up in this colour.
 Display on the Mound, Edinburgh I had my pre-operation assessment last Thursday, and the best thing I can say about it is that I’ve apparently got an excellent body mass index. (This may be the only time the word excellent has ever been applied to my body, though I do treasure the scornful reaction of one nurse a few years back when I said I thought I was putting on weight: “I’ve seen more fat on a chip”.) So it looks like it’s all systems go for the op. Meanwhile I’ll continue to follow Polonius’s excellent advice to all laryngitis sufferers, “Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice”. And I’ll leave the last word for now to the Great Dane, Hamlet himself, facing up to his own microlaryngoscopy operation: the rest is silence…
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