Wick (J Nicolson): Week 3, 8 September

I took a short break from Sunday chores yesterday afternoon.  It was for a specific reason – at 3 PM there was to be a test of the Emergency Alert System.  I didn’t want to be next to a mobile phone when the alarm signal was broadcast.  And it was just as well – I could clearly hear the alarm signal a floor away.  It reminded me of my childhood, when on both TV and radio the fateful words “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System” would ring out. 

The EBS was used in the US from 1963 to 1997, having been modelled on a system used in Hawaii.  Its purpose was to provide the President a means to widely communicate war or national crisis, but was never used for this.  It was  tested regularly, as millions of Americans can attest.  In 1997, The Emergency Alert System replaced it, and is more or less the same.  It is tested nationally about once a year and locally about once a month.

Rain in the distance

The UK had a ‘four minute warning’ system from the Cold War up to 1992.  A new system was developed in 2013, when it was first tested, but it wasn’t dopted.  Seven years later, the need became more urgent, when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in 2020.  Initially, the government worked with UK mobile networks to inform the populace of lockdown rules, but then started to develop a proper alert system, which was tested nationally a year later.  The system was launched in 2023 and is tested every two years.  It has seen action only three times, once for an unexploded WWII bomb in Plymouth, and twice for severe weather.

View of Wick

Alert systems aside, I’m still hard at work on the sewing.  I’d hoped to finish it a week ago but there has been problem solving and unpicking along the way.  The back vent needed a fair bit of thought.  The pattern specifies a simple slit, made by folding under wide center back seam allowances.  I decided a proper vent, where one side underlaps, would look better.  Internet searches provided a solution, but I did need to add a piece to the lining to have enough fabric in the right places.  It works, and looks good on the outside, but on the inside . . . But that has been done, and the coat and lining are hemmed as well.  It’s completed, apart from the buttonholes and buttons.  I’ve made a change there too, reducing the number of buttons in order to have fewer buttonholes to hand sew.

Hoverfly on late rose

 The lilac gansey hasn’t been ignored, of course.  The colour in last week’s pic was off, it’s decidedly greyer.  It’s another one of those colours that is difficult to photograph.  I fit in a row or two whenever I can.  Thursday mornings at the museum are a godsend, as apart from when visitors arrive, it’s dedicated knitting time.  The patterning is more visible now, and this will continue all the way up to the shoulders.