Gansey Nation

It’s been a week bookended by explosions and drifting clouds of smoke. To start at the end, last night was the finish of gala week, which always culminates in a very pretty firework display down by the river. For once the weather was kind and sunset elided into a clear night of soft blue skies, against which the dark shapes of birds flitted to their nests, the perfect stillness of the night broken only by the pounding thump-thump-thump of the funfair. We watched the fireworks from our upstairs window, breathing in the drifting smoke from the huge bonfire, watching coloured flashes fill the sky and jumping at the bangs. The only problem is, it’s practically August, and here in the far north of Scotland summer tends to leave with the fair. Autumn is just around the corner: the wind has a subtle edge and even the warmest days have a feeling of impermanence.

Getting ready for the bonfire

The week opened with the demise of our microwave oven, which yielded up its spirit accompanied by a loud buzzing noise, like a bluebottle trapped in Metallica’s sound system, together with a cloud of acrid smoke. It occurred to me that this might be a special feature by the manufacturers, if they were Scandinavian, and that each oven departs this world by providing its own Viking funeral; I suppose I should be grateful that it didn’t ritually disembowel and incinerate me as well.

I’ve been amusing myself by imagining how various writers might have described it. So far I’ve got Dickens (“It was the best of ovens, it was the worst of ovens”), Tolstoy (“All working microwaves are alike; each broken microwave is broken in its own way”), Jane Austen (“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an archivist in possession of a broken microwave, must be in want of a replacement”) and Tolkien (“In a hole in a recycling bin lived a broken microwave”). Then there’s Camus: “Our microwave oven died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.” Or possibly even Kafka—”As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a broken microwave oven”.

So now it’s off to the home for abandoned microwaves to find a new one, always a depressing experience as you walk up and down rows of cages, with hopeful ovens wagging their little tails and barking optimistically, hoping you’ll take it home. I just hope the new one’s been housetrained. Meanwhile I can only make this appeal, in the immortal words of Shakespeare’s Mark Antony: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ovens…”

We’re having all our windows replaced. It was long overdue—they were very old, some of the frames were rotten, and one was basically held together with a twisty tie and a rolled-up towel laid across the join to keep the wind out. Things had got so bad the Council proposed we change the name of our property to The House of Usher. The final straw was observing a Himalayan vulture the other day perched amid the seagulls on our roof with a hopeful look in its eye. Yes, it was definitely time.

Bedroom windows removed

It’s been a week of disruption all round, with our house currently resembling a set from Saving Private Ryan and the County Show taking place across the way. Overnight the neighbouring fields were transformed into the kind of tented city that Galadriel might have ordered if the elves had won the contract to run the Glastonbury festival. Tall, white pavilions encompassed the field over the road, and the hills were alive with the sounds of a funfair, motorcycle display teams and vintage tractors. Then it rained.

A vintage tractor on display

Well, I say rained, though that doesn’t really convey the apocalyptic immensity. If I open my thesaurus other, more appropriate, nouns suggest themselves: deluge, torrent, downpour, spate, and perhaps even cataclysm. Then in the early morning it stopped and words like mud, sun, heat, mud, steam and more mud become necessary. At times it felt like a recreation of the battle of Waterloo, which had uncannily similar weather—though I’ve never quite recovered from learning that the Allied and French armies, who got into position overnight in the pouring rain, didn’t have any toilet facilities (water-porta-loos?) and just relieved themselves where they stood or lay; and so, when the sources describe the battle taking place in a sea of mud, well, let’s just say it was brown and leave it at that.

Backing into the traces

In gansey news, I have finished the first sleeve and am now embarked on the second. I’ve just finished the underarm gusset and there’s just the rest of the sleeve and cuff to go. It’s not a long sleeve, and I’ll be decreasing at a rate of two stitches every fifth row. I still hope to finish it by the end of July, so fingers crossed.

And as I write this it’s Sunday morning and the tents are coming down surprisingly quickly—every time I look out the window—or the gaping hole where a window used to be—another one’s gone. Soon it will be as if they’d never appeared, and all we’ll be left with is the funfair; though, without wishing to appear in any way negative, honestly I think I’d rather take the vulture…

I was intrigued to discover recently that, under the Salmon Act of 1986, it’s illegal to handle a salmon in suspicious circumstances. Of course, this means you can be arrested for handling potentially stolen goods and not, presumably, using a salmon as a tennis racket or playing it like a banjo. But it did send me looking for other unusual or outdated laws which are still on the statute books.

Did you know that it’s illegal to carry a plank along the pavement in London? I assume this is because the police have seen too many Laurel and Hardy movies. Other unlawful activities include driving cows along the highway without permission and firing a cannon within 300 yards of a dwelling house. And since 1313 members of Parliament have been forbidden to wear armour in the House, which goes some way to explaining why Prime Minister’s Questions has been so dull lately.

There are plenty of myths around outdated laws which turn out not to be true. So, no, you can’t shoot foreigners with a longbow in Chester or Hereford after curfew (nor in all likelihood could you ever); Oliver Cromwell, killjoy though he was, never actually banned eating mince pies at Christmas; and yes, you are permitted to hide a Catholic priest in your house should you so desire (it’s good to have a hobby that involves meeting other people).

Valeriana pyrenaica

Lifting our gaze from the quirks of the law, in parish notices Judit has sent us a picture of another gansey to admire. It’s John Northcott’s pattern from Rae Compton’s book (or “Straight Outta Compton” as controversial rappers NWA called their album celebrating ganseys), simple and elegant, and the light grey heather colour allows the pattern to stand out clearly. It is a gift for a very lucky young man. Many thanks as ever to Judit for sharing her ganseys with us!

Grasses by the river

And harking back to strange laws, of course the UK has never had a monopoly on these. In ancient times it was illegal to die on the island of Delos, which was a holy place to the gods (whaddaya gonna do, shoot me?). My favourite though is Peter the Great’s 1698 beard tax, which he introduced to make Russian men look more modern. The idea was that you either had to shave or buy a “beard token”, which you would show to police on demand: if you couldn’t produce a token, they were allowed to forcibly shave you (presumably saving canny Russians a fortune in barbers’ fees). Unsurprisingly the law proved unenforceable, and was finally repealed by another The Great, Catherine, in 1772. Anyway, so much for the law. Now I have a strange urge to eat a mince pie, handle a salmon and, after counting to 100, go see if I can find a Catholic priest hiding somewhere in my house…