It’s generally been another dull week, with one exception, which occurred on Saturday. As usual, there was a handbell practice in the morning. One of the other ringers texted early in the morning offering a lift, which I accepted. It meant that I’d be late for lunch with friend S, as I’d have to get home and head out again instead of going straight from bells. Accordingly, I let her know.
So far, so good. When I arrived home, I switched activity bags – knitting in the car, bell stuff out – and set off. S lives in the upland countryside outside Thurso, and the only roads are single track with passing places. I bounced around and through potholes until I met an oncoming car less than half a mile from her house. I’d just gone by a passing place and decided to reverse into it.
Shadows behind the church gate
This is where things went rather wrong. I couldn’t see the layby in the reversing cameras and misjudged where it was. As a result, I slowly, almost elegantly, backed the car into the roadside ditch. After attempts to go forward and back, I realised it was bootless. With the car resting at an angle, its nose buried in the gully, I pondered what to do. The car I’d pulled over for had stopped, and the driver asked if I was alright. I phoned S to update her. While on the phone, one of her neighbours was passing, and volunteered to stop by S’s. After that, every passing car asked if I were o.k. Plans were hatched by S and her friends, the first being to get in touch with local farmers and the second being to call a recovery service.
‘Nuff said.
Shortly after this, S arrived and then a local farmer appeared. He didn’t think he could shift the car, and recommended contacting a recovery company, which he helpfully did. The first company wasn’t available, the second didn’t have the personnel, but the third would come by S’s after they finished another job. That being settled, S & I returned to hers for lunch and a big mug of tea.
The recovery company duly called at the house to get the car keys, and almost exactly three hours after the incident, the car was parked outside S’s house. The car was undamaged, but they said that there was a tin can between the wheel and the disc brake, which made a noise when driven. He thought that it would eventually wear down and drop out. We went to the car to have a look. When he put his hand in the wheel to show me, he realised he could compress it, and it fell out. And that’s the saga of Saturday. Boneheaded driving, but the car is fine, and I am fine, apart from embarrassment.
Grater and spoon
Because I was at S’s longer than usual, I got lots of knitting done. So much, in fact, that when I left I was an inch into the cuff of the second sleeve. With concentrated effort on Sunday morning, I finished the cuff and darned in the ends. I’ll block it this week. For the next project, I’m taking a break from ganseys and jumping on the red hat bandwagon. But mine will be a red hood with attached cape. The pattern is ‘Nottingham’ by Nim Teasdale, available on Ravelry.
I’m back home after my trip south. It was only 12 days, but felt longer. The burgeoning of Spring was apparent further south, where the hedges along the motorways were starting to sprout with green. The signs of Spring here are quieter; the leaves on the roses are starting to grow, as are the buds on the clematis. Another sure sign of the turning season is the sudden blossoming of ‘For Sale’ signs on local houses. Our neighbours’ is one; they are moving to England after two decades in Caithness.
New growth on the rosebush
The primary purpose of my trip was to attend a short course on making and playing bamboo pipes at Cadhay Manor, near Exeter in Devon. In this beautiful venue, a small group four pipers and five recorder players made and played pipes. Most of the recorder players were completely new to pipes, and took to it like ducks to water. Two attendees had travelled from the US specifically for the course. It was an intensive few days, and far too short. We’d barely begun before it was over.
Cadhay Manor
After the course I visited friends in Southport and Edinburgh. In Southport, we did lots of nothing, which is what I needed after an intensive few days. Our only activity dropping off Gordon’s stereo for repair in the town centre, as it had failed over the past few years. In the evenings, as my friend hadn’t seen it, we binge-watched ‘Ted Lasso’. I enjoyed re-watching it and caught up on my knitting.
Rhododendron
The next stop was Edinburgh. I visited the ‘Botanics’, the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh, and had a wander round. It wasn’t particularly warm, but it was mostly sunny. The daffodils were blooming, as were some late snowdrops. The rhododendrons were starting too, with large flowers of white, pink or red. I had a good wander around, finding a few nooks I hadn’t seen before, and ended with lunch at the café.
Sculptures at the Botanics
After that, I visited an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of the photos of Alfred Buckham. Mostly taken in the 1910s-30s, these are aerial landscapes taken from open cockpit planes. He refused to wear a seatbelt and leant over the side of the plane with his glass plate camera, after having tied one leg to the seat! He is best known for his composite photos, the most famous of which is an aerial view of Edinburgh Castle, with a biplane flying over it. The negatives of the castle, clouds, and plane were combined in a print to form the final image. All editing was done on the print, not the plate, as was usual at the time. He meticulously catalogued and stored his plates for future use.
Spiral staircase at Cadhay
While I lost a few days’ knitting while at the course, I did manage to catch up during my visits. The first sleeve was finished and the stitches for the second picked up before I went away. Now, the pattern bands on the second sleeve are nearly finished, and then it will be plain sailing with k5 p1 to the k2 p2 cuff. This gansey seems to have sped along. If I keep it up, it may be finished in under four months.
This week, I am pleased to say that the computer is sorted out. Everything is back where it should be. The most difficult application to rectify was Lightroom, where the program hadn’t been able to open the photo catalog. This is not a disaster, as the catalog does not contain the photos themselves. Various internet remedies were tried, most of which involved putting the catalog in another location or changing the file permissions. Modifying permissions on the Lightroom folder didn’t work, but I was able to connect the program to a different copy of the catalog. Finally, I thought to change the permissions on the folder where Lightroom resides, and Bingo!
Glorious Sunshine
With the weather being vastly improved, I’ve been able to go on a couple of walks. The foothpaths run east or west. East is towards the harbour, and there are two choices – either along the North Head path or along the South Head path. The North Head path goes along the top of the cliffs, past the North Baths, the WWII gun emplacement, and the ‘Soldiers’ Tower’ monument. The South Head path starts at the harbour‘s end and continues past the lifeboat shed and the old quarry. At the end, there’s a stairway up the cliffside where the path continues to the Trinkie pool and the Castle of Old Wick. Both North and South Head paths are part of the John o’Groats Trail, which runs from Inverness to John o’Groats.
Gnarly Hawthorn
The path towards the west starts at the edge of town and follows the edges of fields for about a mile and a half, where it ends in a hillock. The wide margin of marsh between the farmland and river means there’s only a few places where the river is directly alongside. This path more often taken, partly because it’s more scenic, and also because the prevailing wind comes from the west, and I like to head out into the wind and come back with it.
Lybster Lighthouse
The Gansey Group in Lybster met again this week. It’s a welcome extra session of knitting, as I sometimes must skip knitting in the evenings when I’m out. One of the ladies was wearing ‘Wick Leaf’, which we published in The Knitter magazine a few years ago. She had made it in Herring Girl Pink, which showed the pattern extremely well. It’s a nice pink, too – pink without being brash or girly.
Lichen on willow
The sleeve on the current gansey is well under way now, and I am very pleased with the progress. The four pattern bands, which come down to the forearm, are finished, and they follow the same order as the bands in the yoke. This means that, serendipitously, the pattern at the start of the sleeve matches the first band on the yoke. The yoke band ends at the centre of the gusset, and the sleeve band begins there.
For the next two weeks, I’m slipping the bonds of Caithness and am heading south for a bamboo pipe workshop in Devon. On the way, I’ll be visiting friends. See you on the other side, and enjoy the spring weather.
It’s generally been another dull week, with one exception, which occurred on Saturday. As usual, there was a handbell practice in the morning. One of the other ringers texted early in the morning offering a lift, which I accepted. It meant that I’d be late for lunch with friend S, as I’d have to get home and head out again instead of going straight from bells. Accordingly, I let her know.
