Gansey Nation

We went up to John O’Groats on Saturday, as we often do, for to view the fields and to take the air, as my favourite folk song says. There weren’t many fields but there was a lot of air, barrelling down at us at about 45 mph straight from the arctic circle, so we didn’t linger.

We did stay long enough to see the seal in the harbour, or rather its snout poking up from the icy water like a little whiskery buoy. There were a couple of fishing boats moored there, rocking to the waves and the wind, and the seal kept vanishing underwater to see what it could find beneath them; either that, or it was playing hide-and-seek with the other seals out in the Pentland Firth.

I like seals. Their whiskers give them the air of an elderly geography teacher, a sleek aquatic Einstein. They’re like sensible, grown-up dolphins; you can’t imagine dolphins listening to Radio 4 and appreciating Pink Floyd or test cricket, for example—they haven’t the patience and just want to party. Seals, on the other flipper, always look like they’ve just mislaid their pipe tobacco and slippers. If reincarnation is a thing, then dolphins are a good place to start; but seals are born with old souls.

As for the gansey, I’ve finished the first sleeve and am now embarked on the second. I’m amazed at how small it all looks, how shrivelled, like a dehydrated starfish. This is because of all the purl stitches running the length of the body and sleeves, which draws it in. It actually has more stitches in the round than the green Scarborough gansey I knit recently, but at present is at least six inches narrower round the chest. Blocking will sort this, of course; or if not I just have to find a very thin supermodel in need of chunky knitwear.

In parish news, Judit has sent me pictures of a gansey-inspired project, a slipover or sleeveless jumper with a tasteful Scottish fleet half-flag pattern running up the centre. Many congratulations to Judit once again on the project, and for reminding us just how versatile gansey patterns can be.

Looking towards Duncansby Head

I’ve always loved the Scottish legends of the selkie, the seals who take human form. They say that if you find a selkie’s sealskin you can compel them to marry you (I thought I was in luck the other day down on the beach, but no—it was just a bin liner). But how can you tell if your partner is really a selkie—other than the strong smell of fish, of course? Well, the best way is to throw them a herring: if they catch it on the tip of their nose, toss it up in the air and then swallow it whole, the balance of probabilities is they’re a selkie.

N.B., we’ll be away all next week on a trip down to Northampton to celebrate my father’s birthday, so it’ll just be a short bloguette on Monday. (I won’t quite have finished the gansey, as we’ll be travelling most of next weekend.) Normal service will be resumed in a fortnight. See you then!

Here’s a useful health and safety tip: when making a cup of coffee for breakfast, especially if you have a bit of a migraine, it’s a good idea not to let your mind wander so that you end up pouring boiling water over the hand that’s holding the mug steady.

Not only that, but when you jerk your hand violently away you should probably make sure your fingers aren’t still wrapped around the handle. This way you avoid sending the mug skimming across your kitchen as though it was a cross between a Frisbee and a muck spreader, liberally distributing scalding hot coffee as it sails through the air.

Sunset in Boston

It’s also a sensible precaution—and I want you to follow me closely here—while you’re hopping around frantically shaking drops of boiling water off your hand, not to have a glass of freshly-poured pineapple juice resting on the edge of the kitchen counter within easy reach. Otherwise you end up with a cascade of sticky yellow fruit juice pouring onto the floor and soaking through your slippers (a sensation not unlike having an octopus trying to mate with your foot).

Yes, all this happened to me this week. Now every time I walk across the kitchen floor it makes a noise like Velcro.

Sunrise at Heathrow

My hand is more or less fine—it only hurts when I put it in hot water, such as when I bathe. I experimented briefly with rubber gloves, since they offer protection in washing the dishes, but I soon realised that they have one major drawback: viz. that they are open at one end. I considered sealing one round my wrist with masking tape, but then I wondered what would happen if I had a heart attack in the bath and was discovered wearing it? The tabloid headlines practically write themselves: Unexplained sex death of rubber glove fetish archivist being the least of them.

No, in the end I decided to follow the example of American Civil War general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and just keep my hand raised out of the water. (In Jackson’s case this was because he believed it would send the blood flowing into his other arm, and so keep his circulation in balance, but the principle’s the same.) Granted, to anyone peeping through the window I probably look like someone swearing a lengthy oath of allegiance to his rubber duck—not a euphemism—but I can live with that.

Oh, well. Despite finding new and interesting ways to damage my hands, my ability to knit remains unimpaired. I have finished Side B, joined the shoulders, completed the collar and picked up stitches for the first sleeve. I follow the traditional width of neck, i.e., a third of the total width of the body: so, as each side of this gansey is 185 stitches, each shoulder has 62 stitches and the neck 61 stitches. (Remember, it’s important when calculating and picking up stitches for the collar that you end up with a total that is divisible by 4, so that the knit 2/purl 2 ribbing works out evenly.)

Written in Stone: one of the ‘Babson Boulders’ at Dogtown Common, Gloucester, MA

Incidentally, did you know that Stonewall Jackson’s arm has its own grave? The man himself, accidentally killed by his own side at Chancellorsville in 1863, is buried in his native Virginia, but his amputated left arm was buried at the battlefield, and even has a monument. (Memo to self: be a little more careful with my hands in future unless I want to end like Jackson, or Voldemort in the Harry Potter books, with various parts of me scattered about the landscape for the curious to collect…)