Cornflower

Out of the doldrums

 

 

    I took Ros's advice to get me out of the doldrums, picking up the second half of a cabled hot water bottle cover which I started ages ago. I've no idea why I let it lie as it's quite straightforward and satisfyingly quick, and - as Ros suggested - it won't take long to finish.

 

    The pattern is from Erika Knight's Simple Knitting, the yarn is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, and progress was made while watching Murray and Tsonga on the Centre Court this evening.

Just when you could do with a breeze

    Our poor flag has been hanging - rather than flying - from Mr. C's office flagpole today, but at least it was there, marking Tynwald Day. Follow that link for a short clip of film about the significance of the occasion for the Isle of Man, or click here to see pictures of the today's event at Tynwald Hill in the heart of the island, and should you ever have wondered what the Manx national anthem sounds like, you can hear the first verse (sung in English, though) here!

Book of the day - Names for the Sea

 

    Over on Cornflower Books yesterday we were talking about books which are on our wish lists, and Liz left a comment reminding me of one that's been on mine for ages. Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland by Sarah Moss (author of one of my favourite novels of 2011, the excellent Night Waking - read about it here) is her account of her year spent living in Iceland. Here's the blurb:

    "Novelist Sarah Moss had a childhood dream of moving to Iceland, sustained by a wild summer there when she was nineteen. In 2009, she saw an advertisement for a job at the University of Iceland and applied on a whim despite having two young children and a comfortable life in an English cathedral city. The resulting adventure was shaped by Iceland's economic collapse, which halved the value of her salary, by the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull and by a collection of new friends, including a poet who saw the only bombs fall on Iceland in 1943, a woman who speaks to elves and a chef who guided Sarah's family around the intricacies of Icelandic cuisine.

Sarah was drawn to the strangeness of Icelandic landscape, and explored hillsides of boiling mud, volcanic craters and fissures, and the unsurfaced roads that link remote farms and fishing villages in the far north. She walked the coast path every night after her children were in bed, watching the northern lights and the comings and goings of migratory birds. As the weeks and months went by, the children settled in local schools and Sarah got to know her students and colleagues, she and her family learned new ways to live.

    I haven't got the book yet but I wanted to mention it here because it's just out and sounds so good, and - following on neatly from yesterday's post - to show you its very distinctive 'knitted' cover! Adèle wrote about it before it acquired that jacket, and as you'll see from her piece, it includes an excellent chapter on knitting.

Kniting her cheif industry

 

 

    "Mamy is like most middle-aged ladys, stout, brown hair, spectaciles, kniting her cheif industry etc. etc. Papy of course is the master of the house, and a man in whom you can see strong Lewis features, bad temper, very sensible, nice wen not in a temper. I am like most boys of 9 and I am like Papy, bad temper, thick lips, thin and generaly weraing a jersey."

That's the young C.S. Lewis writing in 'My life during the Exmas Holydays of 1907' as quoted by Humphrey Carpenter in The Inklings.

    Sadly, if the jerseys worn by Clive - or Jack as he was known - were the work of his mother, the supply would soon be at an end for Mrs. Lewis died suddenly not long after that autobiographical note was written, but her son's view of middle-aged ladies (not to mention his spelling) amused me, hence my quoting it here.

    Knitting has been far from my 'cheif industry' lately, in fact it's been sadly neglected with little time to give to it and all projects stalled. I think I ought to take stock and see what's actually on the needles, and then get some momentum going by casting on for something new seeing what can be finished without much more ado, perhaps.

     Do you have a tried and tested method of getting out of the knitting doldrums?

Floriferous 2: in bud

 

    Planned in February,

    sown in April,

    now just about to flower.

 

    Here's what we're aiming for (albeit in a smallish patch). Fingers crossed.

A future landmark for a shilling

   

 

    "It is the planning of the new trees that is our main pleasure. Noel has a consuming lust for it, and spends an afternoon in a stupor of emotion, measuring distances between proposed new trees, writing down the numbers required and adding them up. Sixty-six new poplars are needed, and they only cost fifty shillings a hundred! Trees are grotesquely cheap. It always amazes me to realise that one can buy a future landmark for a shilling, and make an avenue out of the cost of a new dress. But it is wrong, anyhow, to think of trees in terms of money. They should be beyond the world of ledgers, even as there is no charge for a white cloud or for the warmth of the sun."

Later in the year ...

    "The gardener would plant them with their fullness towards the north-east; for, he says, a tree always bushes towards the south and west and falls towards the east. He cuts at the main roots of the trees with a downward slant, that better fibrous roots may form. As we bear them off, a little breeze shakes through the frail branches.

'How they sigh directly we put 'em upright, though while they are lying down they don't sigh at all,' said Marty South in The Woodlanders. 'It seems to me,' the girl continued, 'as if they sigh because they are very sorry to begin life in earnest - just as we be.'

    Tenderly we spread out the roots, keeping them flat and separate upon the floor of the hole. I hold the trees upright as Noel throws in the earth.

    By evening, we have added twelve chestnuts and two elms to the countryside, and have secured for ourselves a stake in the future. And on the branches of the little elms sit surprised sparrows and a singing robin."

From Four Hedges: A Gardener's Chronicle, written and illustrated by Clare Leighton.