Robin McKinley's Blog, page 83

KES, 41

 

FORTY ONE 

            “And?” said Serena.  “Are you always this difficult to get information out of, or only when it’s someone you only met for the first time yesterday who is trying to prise all the details of your personal life out of you?  You probably don’t even have a Facebook page.”

            “Well, I do,” I said.  “Have a Facebook page.  Professionally.”

            “Professionally?” said Serena. 

            “Do you have a web site?” said Gus.  “Do you sell things on it?”

            “Yes and not exactly,” I said.  “I’m, um, a writer.  Fiction.  I, um, write books.  Mostly novels.  Mostly fantasy.  I had to get an extension on the fourth in the series about a character named Flowerhair because getting divorced turned out to be bad for my concentration.  Flowerhair is kind of an anti-babe with a sword.  She doesn’t look anything like Lucy Lawless.  And Aldetruda, whose next adventure was due to be handed over to my editor about the time that I’ll probably finally get FLOWERHAIR THE DAUNTLESS in, and who attempts to save the world from the vampire hordes, doesn’t look anything like Buffy.”

            “Oh, wow,” said Gus.  “Wicked cool.  Are there zombies?”

            “Not many,” I said apologetically.  “Aldetruda has had trouble with zombies once or twice but it’s mainly vampires.  And there are a couple of free short stories on my web site and a novella that you have to pay about the price of a cup of coffee to download but it’s mostly just a bibliography and some interviews and stuff.”

            There was a little silence.  I concentrated on my quiche. 

            “Yes,” said Serena at last.  “Wicked cool.  Very wicked cool.”

            “Sort of,” I said to my plate.  “It’s not like I’m sure I’m going to make ends meet even living in an economically despondent backwater.  And so, in answer to the question you’re not asking, no, not all authors are wealthy.  Most of us have to have day jobs.  I’m borderline.  Maybe I should talk to Andy Pierpont.”  I looked at her.  Her expression was a bit wry.  “Let Gus build you your web site.  What have you really got to lose?”

            “I guess,” she said.  “Credibility, I suppose.”

            “Credibility?” said Gus.

            She reached out and patted his arm.  “No, I’m not impugning your web skills.”  She said to me, “I know I suffer the usual drooling mom thing about my offspring, and so long as it didn’t have flashing blue text on a black background I probably wouldn’t know a good web site from a bad one, but the Cabell High web site keeps winning awards from people besides the East Pretzel group blog, and he and two of his Gothic nightmare cronies run it.  All I know about it is that it’s never crashed when I’m looking up the next parents’ open night with plastic wiener barbecue and a conga line.  But, you know, web photos make JMW Turner look like the local art show third prize winner, which is of the artist’s miniature Schnauzer in a dress.  And the 3D stuff . . . unh.  I know there are sites like Etsy and Wilhemina’s Atelier but . . . I just don’t think the web is very . . . favorably disposed to art.”

            “Angelfire and brimstone,” said Gus.  “What century are you from?”

            “The wrong one,” said Serena.  “But the idea that someone in Peoria or Lhasa might look at some of my stuff and think twee or cozy or I wonder if she does commissions, I could hire her to paint my miniature Schnauzer in a dress, fills me with terror and despair.”

            “We’ll be careful with the photos,” said Gus.  “And we’ll put up a disclaimer that you don’t do portraits of small domestic pets in dresses.  Unless they pay you really really well.  And you’d consider a Mastiff, right?”

            “I have raised you wrong,” said Serena.  “And I won’t remember any of this conversation in the morning.”

            “Yes you will,” said Gus.  “Because I have a witness.”

            “I don’t think I’ve actually agreed to anything,” said Serena.  “So, Kestrel MacFarquhar, it occurs to me that with a name like that you almost had to grow up to write fantasy novels.  But if you’re not a wealthy best seller then maybe I can’t walk into Bookfolly at the mall and find—er—the latest Flowerhair face out on the new and noteworthy shelf?”

            “That would be a sound and credible prediction,” I said, “unless the book buyer has a nervous tic for genre.”  I wondered briefly about Hayley and her brother.  “Last time I checked, FLOWERHAIR THE ADAMANT, which came out about six months ago, is ninety-seven gazillionth on amazon.”

            “Bookfolly needs its range recalibrated,” said Serena.  “It also needs to stay in business, and I admire them for the foolhardy romance of being a small independent bookstore in an area best known for dairy cattle and canoeing.  I will special order FLOWERHAIR THE ADAMANT.”

 

Ooooh. Shiny.

 

It’s heeeere. 

And yes it’s gorgeous and heavenly in every way. Including how WARM your lap is if you’re just . . . snuggling it.

I haven’t had any response to my email about their argleblarging website, but the yarn has arrived.  Which is to say that their customer service sucks but their mail room is ace.  And priorities?  Yes.  I’d rather have the yarn than a ravishingly nuanced apology for technological incompetence, including the fact that the yarn in question had been sold three days before to a gnarly middle-aged forklift operator who likes to sit at the back of the Troll and Nightingale* and knit while knocking back pints of an evening, laying** down his knitting needles occasionally to break chairs over other customers who annoy him. 

            So this counts as a win.

            Now I just have to chooooooose a pattern.***  

anne_d

Grrr. Argh. Now I want to dig out one of the knitting projects.

::Looks at current crop of UnFinished Objects of various and sundry sorts::

I will be strong, I will NOT start another project until I finish one of the UFOs. Really. Seriously. This time for sure.

Maybe just that little lace yarn scarf kit? Or one of the little knitted beaded bags?

Robin, you are a Bad Influence. Never, never change.

Yo, honey, you’re a long time blog reader.  Do you really think it’s LIKELY?  I just keep trying to throw my net a little wider around things to be a bad influence about. 

joseph_ine

I was introduced to malabrigo yarn whilst visiting the US. So pretty!! When I manage to pull it out of storage (in the process of moving) I shall photograph it for you all to drool over, however that won’t be until October.

In other words, you are safe until then! 

Sadly . . . wrong.  Malabrigo is hideously and surplusly to requirements available over here.  Ask me how I know this.  Not that I wish to discourage you from posting a photo(s) of edibly delicious YARN however. 

blondviolinist

Her knitting guru is obviously letting her down if she hasn’t told Hannah yet that you’re supposed to have more than one project on the needles at any given time!

Yes, I’m waiting to hear what her guru says after Hannah informs her that she had to have a friend tell her she could start a new project before she finishes the old one(s).  I suspect there may have been a collision of gratuitous businesslikeness between the two of them, both of whom are accustomed to terrifying lesser mortals with a glance.  Hannah however is clearly still human at least in private, or she wouldn’t be my friend.  It’s possible I suppose that her guru actually finishes whatever she has on her needles before she picks up something new.  ::Shudder::  I will, of course, try my utmost to lead Hannah into the paths of unrighteousness.

People keep telling me cables are easy. Go away.

But, but, but… they are easy.

::slinks away::

Sure.  Yes.  I totally believe you.  And Attila the Hun was nice to little old ladies.  And Marie Curie died of a surfeit of raspberries.† 

jmeadows

Her knitting guru is obviously letting her down if she hasn’t told Hannah yet that you’re supposed to have more than one project on the needles at any given time!

I agree. That way when you get angry with one project, you can show it how much you don’t care about it by knitting the other project.

We be of one blood, thou and I, not necessarily in a good way.  The problem however with having three projects all going pretty much head to head, or in your Mobile Knitting Unit, which is getting kind of crowded, is worrying about what the two you aren’t working on are saying behind your back.

Diane in MN

Some cables are difficult. This is true. But blondviolinist is exactly right–mostly THEY ARE EASY. REALLY. I don’t know that there’s any other knitting technique that gives you so much effect for so little effort.

You’re all just punishing me for those cliffhanger KES endings, right? 

* * *

* Hurtling hellhounds in town^ this afternoon we turned up into New Arcadia’s mini-industrial-estate.  There’s a footpath that leads out of the far end into more salubrious territory, and I’m not sure the hellhounds care a great deal about the broad view, so long as the immediate view includes things that other dogs have peed on recently.  But the town dump is on this street, and several specialist garages^^, and grubby warehouses for the kind of businesses that have more tasteful shopfronts elsewhere:  fitted kitchens and conservatories, for example, and a flash auction house keeps its junk here.  Its working population is nearly all blokes, and they’re nearly all the kind of gnarly middle-aged guy you don’t want to meet in a pub brawl, unless he’s on your side.

            I could hear the ice-cream van tune playing up ahead.  You’re out of your territory, I thought at it, there aren’t any little kids here.  But as we came around the rather spectacular fence that marks off the dump from its lesser neighbours, there was the ice-cream van with its twinkly lights and its really-bad-manga-style artwork playing its tune and surrounded by gnarly middle aged guys buying ice creams.

            Hee hee hee hee.  Several of them glanced up, saw me, and looked embarrassed.  Hee hee hee.  I may have been grinning.^^^ 

^ We are still mostly hurtling in town, while we all calm down from the recent unusually severe spate of the evil ratbag other dog problem.  Sigh.  Hellhounds give every impression of being back to their kindly, non-reactive selves (Darkness always maintains some residual wariness), which is to say that they’ve been fine with everything we’ve met lately, since there is nowhere you can hurtle your hellhounds that doesn’t already have dogs present, but I don’t want to take too many risks for a while yet.  But I’m getting fairly bored with these mean streets.

^^ Including the body shop I took Wolfgang to after I . . . ran into that stupid gate that had absolutely no business leaping into the middle of the road like that when it saw me coming. 

^^^ It is perhaps unfortunate that the hellhounds are so memorable because without them I’d be another skinny middle-aged woman with glasses.  And with them I walk past the Troll and Nightingale several times a day, because despite the fact that the cottage is in the desirable old part of town+, the Troll and Nightingale is my localest local, and tends to be where the gnarly element hangs out, and enlivens the neighbourhood in ways that the retired colonels don’t like.  I’ve never had a problem but then I’ve never giggled at anybody’s ice-cream-eating habits before either.++ 

+ And the triple-frelling ‘conservation district’ where you need permission to blow your nose and you’d better do it on a proper handkerchief.   

++ If there’s a Saturday-night assault around here, it probably happened at the Troll and Nightingale.  

** Has anyone been paying attention to the latest exposure of the depressing abuse of audience/customer book reviews?  I went to amazon to check out this R J Ellory fellow, since part of the depressingness is that apparently he’s a pretty good writer, and amazon usually has excerpts.  Ellory misuses lie/lay in the first line of the novel I looked at. 

            I’m out of here.  

*** And then add it to the QUEUE. 

Zerlina

 http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring08/PATTtempest.html

I had already put this in my pattern library. Love it. 

ME TOO.  If you knit it first . . . tell us about it.  

Katsheare posted a link to 

http://www.twistcollective.com/2012/fall/magazinepage_01.php 

ARRGH.  ANOTHER HOUR WASTED.  And another frelling email newsletter. 

http://www.twistcollective.com/collection/index.php/component/content/article/90-fall-2011-patterns/934-crane-creek-by-sandi-rosner 

Waaaaaaaant.  But it’s going to have to wait both till I get A LITTLE MORE RELIABLE^ and a little more confident since at the moment I don’t do solid colours and this would make your eyes explode in a multi.^^ 

^ Last night at the abbey I was, of course, knitting.  I happened to be knitting First Cardi because I am impatient although mostly I don’t carry it around at the moment because Second Front is almost done and bulky.  Leandra wanted to know what it was and I said it was my First Cardi!!!  And she said, first?  And I said yes, I’ve only been knitting about a year and a half, and she looked surprised and said, but your knitting is so regular.

            Hee hee hee hee, revisited.  I keep telling you, multi and ribbing hides AMAZING amounts of terrifying incompetence and mind-wanderingness. 

 ^^ gamma

Forget patterns, what you really want is The Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches. Start with a simple, all-plain-stitches pattern that you already have. Thumb through the pattern book until you see something nice in the approximate weight, difficulty level, and drape that you want. Then just substitute textured stitches for plain ones in part or all of your pattern. Now you have a shiny, new, unique pattern! 

I’ve got some other, less comprehensive but still quite scary and confounding book of stitches and furthermore I have Ann Budd’s Handy Book of Patterns which would make it easy [sic] to plug in a MINDLESSLY SIMPLE repeat pattern.  And I actually have the yarn for this exciting solid-colour opportunity some day in the future.  It’s, uh, pink. . . . 

† I have a very easy cable knitting book.  You have to COUNT!  Nothing that involves COUNTING is EASY!  Counting means you have to PAY ATTENTION!^  And you probably have to READ A CHART!  I DO NOT READ CHARTS!  COUNTING is BAD ENOUGH!  CHARTS are clearly MATHS!!!!!!!! 

^ Didn’t you read what I said about stitch counters?

Yarn, update

 

So last night I hung around at least ten minutes after I posted the blog, waiting for ONE OF YOU to save me from myself, having given you EVERY OPPORTUNITY to do so.*   Don’t you have my best interests at heart?  What?  I may have knitted a row or two, waiting.**  I may have done a little washing up.  I may have riffled through the (CHEAP PAPERBACK) pattern books I bought yesterday, musing on this and that.

            And then I GREW BORED WITH WAITING and nailed the freller.  Four skeins***.  Yessssss.  Mine.  Mine.  And have I mentioned it was seriously on sale, as bin ends often are? 

            . . . But I was punished for my presumption.   This is the email I wrote, after having narrowly survived the web site experience: 

Dear Tranquillity Lake Yarns 

Your web site is a disaster.  This is my first order, Order Code: [tirra lirra by the river], and it will probably be my last.  First, your site demands that I register if I’m to buy anything.  It then repeatedly refused my chosen password.  I have no idea why.  It erased it over and over and over.  I retyped it (twice each time) over and over and over.  Eventually it let me through.  Why?  Why not the first time?  If not the first time, why at all? 

Then after I was already well into the check out process it refused my address.  It was exactly the same address I’d typed in for the registration, and your site had already brought it up from my registration.  But it sat there demanding I choose a country.  The country was already chosen.  I re-chose it about ninety times.  I also had to keep rechoosing the first line of my address instead of ‘select address’ or ‘new address’.  The address was also already there.  There was only one address.  And it already had a country selected. 

Eventually it whimsically let me through again. 

Then when I tried to pay, it hung.  And hung.  And hung.  And hung.  After about three minutes I hit ‘refresh’, whereupon I was sent back to the check out page again which now bore a red banner saying there was a problem and to check my details.  My details were not the problem.  Your site is the problem. 

There is absolutely no way I would have lasted the course for this mess except you are the only site I could find this discontinued yarn still available on.  ‘Tranquillity’ knitting?  Don’t make me laugh.

 Yours disgustedly 

PS:  Your ‘thank you for registering with us’ email came in while your site was still refusing my password choice.  

I have had no reply.  I did, however, receive a confirmation of order last night—and a confirmation of despatch this afternoon.† 

* * *

* Okay, maybe not every opportunity.  I didn’t actually tell you the name of the yarn or the name of the specific colourway of the yarn.  Or the name of the site that was selling the last four skeins on the planet.  But hey.  There are only 1,000,000 UK sites that sell Artesano.  You could have showed some initiative.  You had at least ten minutes.  

** I think it was Diane in MN who finally told me for the nth time that a Row Counter Is A Helpful Thing so that it finally registered.^  Also, row counters are cheap and I’m all over cheap as an alternative to . . . compulsive stashing.^^  I mean, you can’t go into a yarn shop without buying something. 

            And a row counter is a helpful thing.  It would be an even more helpful thing, however, if it came with a tiny operating system that would sense every time the end of a row was attained and would shout TURN THE FRELLING ROW COUNTER UP ONE, STUPID.  A programmable OS would be even better.  Then it could say DECREASE THIS ROW when you can’t remember if it’s this one, the next one, or two from now and THE PATTERN SAYS FOR THIRTEEN ROWS.  THIS IS THE THIRTEENTH ROW.  STOP. 

            It still provides a useful clue to progress.  It’s just with minor modifications it could be more like The Book of Knowledge and less like The Wizard of Oz. 

^ Apologies to the fifty-seven knitters who had told me this already.  Some of them several times. 

^^ I really didn’t need another hoarding category.  And in response to the sub-thread on the forum about stashing blank journals, notebooks, sketchbooks, pens, pencils, inks, watercolours, chalks, pastels+ etc . . . yes.   And this particular aspect of my life will riot out of control again as soon as I get SHADOWS turned in and turn at last to the dust-draped doodle deficit.  One of the bad scary wicked FUN things about starting to draw again last year was poking around in art-supply shops.  NOOOOOOOO.  And I’ve always had a paper-journal-to-write-things-in habit.  Which is why, despite Astarte the iPad, my knapsack still weighs like it’s full of dense paper objects.  Because it is.++ 

+ Personally I’ve never tried oils.  Oils are for people who know what they’re doing.  I’ve dabbled briefly in acrylics.  But I like watercolours and inks and coloured pencils.  Also there’s the whole paper issue—which paper for which medium.  I start losing the will to live when I have too many decisions past ‘oooh—shiny’ to make.  

++ Also your fountain pen and three refills weigh a certain amount. 

*** Of Artesano Hummingbird Turtledove, since you were asking.  I have no idea why they called the line ‘Hummingbird’ and then the individual colourways things like Turtledove and Lapwing and Quail and Kingfisher.^

            Fiona says it’s harder to resist a yarn with a name than a yarn with a number.  So you’re wandering innocently through your local yarn shop^^ and you are suddenly mugged by a shelf/basket/heap/mega-wodge of yarn.  It is the most gorgeous thing you have ever seen in your entire life.  You also have more yarn at home than you and six friends will ever knit up if you live into the 22nd century, plus nine starving children and a rhinoceros.  Are you more likely to buy it anyway if the label says “Tirra Lirra by the river sang Sir Lancelot”^^^ than “1248664a/9723.50/z”?

^ I suspect a gross ignorance of natural history.  Never mind.  They’re good at yarn.    

^^ Yesterday’s yarn store is in the old part of Frellingham, which is a trifle idiosyncratically laid out.  We saw several worried-looking people walking slowly past, staring urgently at street numbers.  We could sympathise, having been two of them ourselves shortly before.  But one pair stopped and glared.  It’s a yarn shop! uttered one of them in accents of deepest opprobrium. 

^^^ Blues, greens and russets to die for, trust me. 

† I did, however ring Grandsire Triples successfully enough at the abbey tonight to wring a ‘well done’ from Scary Man.

            I like to think there is hope.  As well as knitting.

More Yarn. Ahem.

 

 

This was an extremely difficult shot to get since Chaos, having been deprived of my company for several hours, was determined to be involved.

 

So, I need some of this, right?

            It’s Fiona’s.  Fiona and I had another Yarn Adventure today.  We won’t discuss how, walking back to the car, there wasn’t room on the pavement for all three of us, Fiona, Fiona’s bag of new yarn and me.*  But of course I insisted on having all the new yarn in the front passenger seat with me so I could go ‘ooooh’ and ‘aaaah’ on the way home.

            I went ‘ooooh’ and ‘aaaah’ over this in particular.  So, back at the mews over tea, I had an idle hunt for it on line.  IDLE.  It’s probably only in 4 ply and I want 8 ply.  And I HAVE LOTS OF YARN AND NO MONEY.  But . . . it’s Artesano.  Mmmm.  Artesano is nice.  And this is pure alpaca.  Mmmm . . . Alpaca is heaven.  But—4 ply.  I don’t do 4 ply.  Oh, I’m sure I saw it in DK/8 ply too, helpfully said Fiona, Limb of Satan.

            . . . They did have it in DK.  And they’ve DISCONTINUED THE ENTIRE LINE.  Oh, no, wait, that’s good, I can’t buy it.  Can’t.  It’s not available any more, except for the odd single skein here and there.

            Fiona, who is truly a demon in human disguise, managed to find the (apparently) only site in England that still has several skeins of the DK left in this specific colourway.  It wasn’t coming up on my google search.  It was coming up on Fiona’s. 

            I presently have the salient page open on my browser.  I go there and refresh it occasionally.  Four skeins are still available.  At 300 metres per that’s plenty to do something with.***

            I.  Do.  Not.  Need.  More.  Yarn. †

            ::refreshes::

            ::refreshes::  WILL SOMEONE PLEASE BUY THIS STUFF.

            ::refreshes:: 

* * *

* Believe it or not I didn’t buy any yarn.  ANY YARN.  But that’s really only because the frelling shop shut too soon.  I hadn’t noticed it was after five o’clock already, okay?  We’d only got there . . . about two hours before.

            Fiona doesn’t do as much damage on line as I do, and I headed for the pattern shelves as we walked in because I already have FABULOUS NEW YARN to purr over and pet, and to waste insane amounts of time imagining what I’m going to make with it.^  Also, while there are Good Sites and Bad Sites^^ for stuff you’ve never seen live, you do start to learn what your favourite yarns are going to be like—I’m a Rowan junkie already, for example^^^, and I also drool automatically if anyone says ‘merino and silk’ to me—but patterns are still mostly a foreign country, the amount of time I’ve spent cruising Ravelry notwithstanding.^^^^ 

             So I marched myself off smartly to the bookshelves and studied.  This is all educational you know.  Educational is good. 

^ I’m nearly at the end+ of Second Front of First Cardi, and then there will be only the sleeves to go before it’s time to sew it up and discover nothing fits together.  I have seen patterns where the pieces are deliberately asymmetrical. . . . ++ 

+ I was talking to Hannah a few days ago, who was mourning the end of summer and return to a big flat on the Upper West Side from a small(ish) cabin in the woods.  I asked her if she’d got any knitting done on her holiday, she being one of several people I have INFECTED with the dread virus.#  No, she said, or not much, because she’d made some kind of error and didn’t know how to fix it, and had to wait till she could take it to her Knitting Guru.  WHAT?  I said.  You knit something ELSE.   You don’t stop knitting.

               Oh?  she said, cheering up immediately.  You can do that?  You can start something new before you finish the first thing?

               To think this woman runs a major publishing enterprise.  Or maybe that’s why she runs a major publishing enterprise.

# Fiona told me her dad had asked if I’d got my book finished.  Not quite, she said.  It’s your fault, he said.  You taught her how to knit.~ 

~ I can’t wait to tell Merrilee.  

++ And I DON’T LIKE THEM AT ALL.  They make me NERVOUS. 

^^ I keep trying to tell myself that I’m glad there are so many yarn sites with TERRIBLE PHOTOS or I’d be in even more stash trouble than I already am. 

^^^ Despite their deplorable fondness for arteeeeeeeeeestic photography.  I want to whap most of their models up longside the head and tell them to get over themselves.

 ^^^^ Also, unless you go in for the serious hardback art book end of knitting patterns, you can get drastically, irresponsibly carried away for a lot less money, buying patterns.  The rush is similar, even downloading free patterns. + 

+ I would like knitty.com a lot better, however, if I could learn to remember the difference between tangy and piquant.   http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring08/PATTtempest.html

Can’t they just say easy, intermediate, difficult and seriously out there?  Although at least they do try to warn you about the level of intensity you’re about to embark on.  One of my pet peeves is knitting mags and knitting books that don’t.  Now, granted, if it’s dripping with lace and cables# I will turn the page quickly, but it’s not always obvious whether something is feasible or fatal.##  And while I’m complaining about the megrims of knitting magazines, what is the deal about not giving you the year of publication?  This seems to be more a British thing, but it is very irritating.  Is this supposed to convince you that their patterns are ageless?  I can make up my own mind about agelessness, thank you###, but when you’re reading the articles about new yarns or special offers it’s nice to know if this is happening now or ten years ago.#### 

# People keep telling me cables are easy.  Go away. 

## Although difficulty level is not the only, ahem, gauge.  I was looking at a very pretty long pullover pattern . . . that you knit ON TWO POINT SEVEN FIVE MILLIMETRE NEEDLES?  ARE YOU FRELLING KIDDING ME?   Gigantic oversized knee-length coats on 4 mm fall into the same category.   I want to finish more than one knitted garment before I die of extreme old age.   

### Whatever it is, it’s not.  But I like vintage.  I am vintage.  

#### Okay, so another way to derive maximum satisfaction from your knitting budget is to hoover up back copies of magazines that your favourite knitting sites are unloading for cheap. 

 *** I would also be in less trouble than I am if I could get my mind off cardigans and on to . . . oh, socks or something.  Hats.  Mug hugs.  Egg cosies.  

† Oh, the worst thing about today’s Yarn Adventure?  I’ve told you, haven’t I, that Fiona and I are simply covering Every Yarn Shop in Hampshire^, and There Are Way Too Many of Them?  And fortunately many of them are poised in  slightly alternate dimensions that require satnav, cursing and fresh black chicken entrails.   But I could find this one again.  This one is really easy.  It’s no farther to drive than . . . oh, than say the Fustian bell tower.  Fortunately Fustian is in the OPPOSITE direction.  

^ Fiona, who lives in East Sussex or Somerset or something, keeps insisting that there just aren’t any good yarn shops near where she is.  Uh huh.  Sure, I believe that.

KES, 40

 

FORTY 

“Okay, you walked into that one,” said Serena.  “Why are you moving here?”

            “Um,” I said.  I took another bite of broccoli, swallowed, and blew on my quiche. 

            “Um?” said Serena.  “You’ve met both our cold spot and our gremlin and you’re giving us ‘um’?”

            “I put a pin in a map,” I said.

            There was a little silence, and then Serena started to laugh.  “Good for you.  If I hadn’t been overwhelmed by siblings I might have done the same.  Well, go on,” she added, as I started chewing again.

            This was the first time I’d had to explain anything to anyone who didn’t know both me and Gelasio.  I scowled at my quiche, which was still too hot to eat.   “My husband found someone he liked better.  He’s the one with the money.  He does something with computers.  Don’t ask me what because I don’t know.   He consults on . . . computer-integrated manufacturing systems.  I had to memorize that.  No idea what it means.   His new girlfriend is something about computers too and between them they could probably buy Canada.  I wasn’t going to be able to afford to go on living in Manhattan.  I mean I decided I was too old to live in one room with cockroaches, and the five boroughs thing—eh.”  I shrugged.  “I wanted a change.  A real change.  I didn’t have any particular idea about what it was going to be except getting out of the city and staying more or less on the righthand side of the country.  And it had to be cheap.  So I got out my old paper atlas.  And a pin.  I’m not sure what I would have done if it’d landed on Sagaponack.  Tried again I suppose.”

            Gus had been distracted from the dreadful sight of someone eating broccoli by my admission of delinquent recklessness.  “Awesome,” he said.

            “Are you sure you want your son listening to this story?” I said.  “If you’d given me a little lead-in time I could have come up with something about a friend of a friend having spent a weekend here in 1983.  I know I should at least have performed my ritual of cluelessness on line and thus salvaged some fragment of self-respect but I didn’t know how to google for an atlas randomness selection function.”  Gelasio would have known how.  Maybe that’s why I chose paper.  No, I chose paper because I still think in paper.  Story drafts are still printed out on a substance you can turn into paper airplanes, or burn, or stop muddy footprints at the door, or line your parakeet’s cage if you have a parakeet, or, if you drop it in the bath, and after it’s spent a few days variously laid out on a convenient radiator or radiators or other serviceable heat source (try to do this only in the winter, when the central heating is on), it makes a stack not only impressively twice as high as it did before, but wavy and smudged like a recently rediscovered Renaissance manuscript (although try not to do this at all with a printer that still uses real ink).  Story drafts were, after all, the most important thing in my life.  Especially now that I no longer had a husband. 

            But I was going to get a dog.

            “He hears much worse from his Aunt Anise,” said Serena.  “No kids?”

            I shook my head.  “This wasn’t planned,” I said.  “We kept saying, oh, well, there’s still time, and then . . . and I turn forty in the autumn.  My mother thinks that was my big mistake.”

            “Not having kids?” said Serena.  “Angelfire and brimstone, what century is she from?  I wouldn’t have missed Gus for the world, but if you’re going to break up, you should go ahead and break up.”

            “Whatever,” I said.  “I’m here now.  And I have a house and a ca—a large grinning thing with wheels and an internal combustion engine.”

            “And a couple of friends, one of whom mows lawns and cuts things down, if you let him,” said Serena.  “Do you need a job?  It’s not great around here.  The local temp agency is decent and treats you like a human being and not something they take out of the box and plug in when needed.  I worked for them for a while.  And since you seem to have an affinity for, hmm, oddness, Andy Pierpont at the old book store is usually looking for help because his is always quitting in tears and going home to mother.  It’s either rats or a poltergeist.  He might be able to hire someone with a bit more fortitude if he paid better.  But if your ex is Bill Gates’ wealthier twin I hope you got a decent settlement and don’t have to rush into anything.  Have some more quiche before Gus eats all of it.”

            “Thanks,” I said. “I have a job.  I work from home.”  I took a gigantic (hot) mouthful of my second piece of quiche.

 

Thanks again to Blogmom, for crucial computer geek consultation.  –ed

Return to the Abbey

 

It’s September* and normal life attempts to return after the excesses of the summer.**  One of the first manifestations of what in my life now passes for normal is . . . beginning ringing Sunday afternoon service at the abbey again, after the August break.

            AAAAAAAAAAUGH.***

            As I was toiling up the 1,000,000,000,000 steps† to the ringing chamber I was thinking drearily about my options.  There are two big problems with the abbey:  the first is that it’s the abbey and the second is that because it’s the abbey practise keeps getting cancelled because they’re ringing a multi-somethinged quadruple peal of blah, or there’s a frelling concert, or the Grand High Panjandrum of Jurglefretz is visiting and for some reason wants silence.  And at that rate I never am going to learn to ring on eight, let alone ten, twelve or forty-two because I am OLD and a slow learner.  I need more frelling time on a frelling rope.  I will continue to ring Mondays with Colin because Colin is a darling and has a friendly welcoming band, but Glaciation only has six bells, and we don’t often have a band capable of triples on the eight-bell South Desuetude nights.  And my experiments with ringing occasionally at New Arcadia again have not been totally successful. . . . ††

            A nice woman I’ve only seen a few times at the abbey, but Gemma likes her†††, was there this afternoon and we fell into conversation over my knitting.  It turns out she rings at Fustian, which is the gold standard in this area and I wouldn’t go to a practise there at gunpoint.‡  Indeed as soon as she said ‘Fustian’ I prepared either to genuflect (tricky while holding knitting needles, especially if you’re me) or to cease at once my impertinence in speaking to her . . . but she said that they had BEGINNERS PRACTISE two extra evenings a month, they ring lots of Grandsire triples, I don’t have to be a member of Fustian‡‡, I can just show up.  YAAAAAAY.  I admit that Fustian is farther than I want to drive regularly, but I can probably manage two practises a month. . . .

            Wild Robert was also there, and a good thing too, since he kept dragging me back from the brink with the Grandsire triples.‡‡‡    He broke his collarbone coming off his bike about three weeks ago, and is ringing one-handed . . . but that has never bothered him.  They rang touches of high-level fancy stuff with him round the front on the lighter bells.  We finished with plain hunt caters—plain hunt on nine bells and the tenor behind.  This was, sadly, for my benefit:  it meant all ten pairs of available hands were pulling on ropes, and the only thing I can ring on ten is . . . plain frelling hunt.  SIIIIIIIGH.  We were ringing on the back ten, so even the two, where I was, while a perfectly nice friendly bell, was not a teacup with a tinfoil clapper.

            Wild Robert rang the tenor.  The nineteen-ton Forza Abbey tenor.  With one hand.

            He did acknowledge afterward that he probably would not want to turn it in with only one hand (ie ring a method where the tenor is not just ringing last every row but has to move around with the other bells).  Even frelling so.

            But possibly even more insane . . . we left together, and I was asking him about the accident and so on—I was afraid he’d got clipped by a jerkface in an SUV or similar, but he says not—and he said, quarter peal week is coming up.  You should ring a quarter of Cambridge minor.

            I should what?  I can barely get through a plain course, and that’s only if the rest of the band knows what it’s doing really well.  I have never rung a touch.  Suggesting I ring a quarter is like saying, oh, you and the hellhounds should enter the Iditarod.  You should yarnbomb the Forth Bridge.§  Wild Robert, in classic Wild-Robert manner, said, no, no, by the end of a quarter you’ll know everything about Cambridge minor.  Well, yes, supposing I survived to the end of a quarter, which is about as likely as . . . my ringing the Forza Abbey tenor to anything.  Or winning the Iditarod.

            We parted with me rather dazedly agreeing to learning what happens when a call is made—what I, on my bell rope, would have to make my bell do.  But this quarter isn’t going to happen.  It’s too good an example of Wild Robert manifesting as . . . er . . . Wild Robert for me to pass up mentioning it here—and as far as that goes if it gets me a forty-five minute grind of Cambridge with a band that knows what it’s doing, it’ll be worth it to me.  But a quarter peal?  It’s a lot likelier that SHADOWS will outsell LOTS OF SHADES OF WHATSIT. 

* * *

*  AAAAAAUGH.  IT CAN’T BE SEPTEMBER.  IT CAN’T BE SEPTEMBER. 

** Erm . . . we did have summer, didn’t we?  I distinctly remember^ complaining about the heat for . . . at least forty eight hours.  I got into shorts at least twice.  Probably just as well it wasn’t more often, since I was bitten on the back of my left knee by something that really didn’t like me and the mark is still there.  It’s no bigger than a medium-sized grapefruit and is fading from bright red to dull purple but it’s not in any hurry.   If I led a life that involved skirts I would be buying extra pairs of 1,000,000 denier^^ black tights. 

^  Well . . . ‘distinctly’ is stretching it.  I don’t waste valuable (crumbly) brain space distinctly remembering much of anything, except maybe where the nearest bar of G&B chocolate is.  I haven’t got room.  I have too many stories to find shelving for.   And bell patterns, of course.  

^^ http://www.mytights.com/gb/hosieryadvice-denier-information/ 

*** Speaking of AAAAAAAAAAUGH.

            There were only six of us to begin with so we rang Grandsire doubles which even I can ring at the frelling abbey, and even when we’re on one of the middle sixes^ so we’re standing in a queue for pity’s sake there’s no ‘ringing circle’ about it.  But then more people showed up and we rang Grandsire triples and . . . oh gods oh gods oh gods.  Albert, bless his pointed little head and his ridiculously sweet temper, said to me on leaving, and managed to sound hopeful, See you at practice on Wednesday?

            Yes.  I’m afraid so.  I may be doomed, but so is the abbey.  At least till they throw me out. 

^ Ie of bells.  The controversy rages on about whether method bell ringing is ‘music’ or not, but method-ringing bells are tuned to the standard western scales, so if you want your methods to sound nice to western ears abbey ringers need to choose a run of bells out of the thirty-six or eighty-nine available that will sound like a coherent and harmonic group. 

† There are more of them than were in July.  I counted. 

†† MMRRGGLLNNCCCH. 

††† Although this is not a reliable standard because Gemma is much nicer than I am.

‡ Okay . . . yes, I’d go at gunpoint.  But I wouldn’t ring anything. 

‡‡ HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA  

‡‡‡  I should really really really stick to knitting.^ 

^ I don’t want to. 

§ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Bridge 

 

SHADOWS

 

 

I am blind and stupid with SHADOWS.  I am so blind and stupid that I am giving you a snippet of it tonight.  Which I have subjected to a little judicious cropping.  I don’t want you to be able to figure anything out. 

            This is near the end, and . . . mwa ha ha ha ha ha. 

* * *

“How close are we going to be able to come?” said Jill conversationally a minute later, negotiating the main street, which was unusually empty—and there had been no soldiers on the corner of Jebali.  We were the only car at the midtown stoplight, which never happens except in the middle of the night.  Two cars passed in front of us—both of them loaded to the roof with suitcases and boxes.  Leaving town.  Heading north and west, which was where Mom and Ran would be going soon too.  With a car full of suitcases and boxes. 

The newsboard banners were empty. There were silverbugs everywhere I looked—clustered in dizzying little clumps on the overhead power lines, glinting on shopfront window sills and scattered apparently at random on the sidewalks.  And ironically every one of the big metal anti-cobey boxes had a crown or swirl of silverbugs.  So much for you, I thought at them.  They didn’t reply.  Two days ago I wouldn’t have expected them to.  Today . . . today it was probably just the throb of the armydar making me spacey.  I was almost getting used to the armydar.  This couldn’t be good. 

My stomach felt funny.  I hope we didn’t drive over any silverbugs. 

We went our solitary way across the intersection.  “To wherever,” said Jill.

“I am not sure,” said Casimir at the same time I said, “Probably not very.”

Takahiro said, “Even if we could drive up to the front door, we don’t want to, do we?  It’s not like we’re coming to the local lockup for official visiting hours.” . . .

 “There’s that falling-down army base a few miles out of town in more or less this direction,” said Jill.  “Out at the edge of the barrens.  Goat Creek.  Maybe it’s not as falling-down as it looks.”

“There have been rumors for years that it isn’t,” said Takahiro.  “Even that it’s completely in use.  They’re just not saying for what.  I’ve always wondered why—and who—runs the sheep out there, you know?  The perimeter fence is from when it was a firing range and special-ops training and stuff, but the fence is still there.  And so are a lot of sheep.  So like now I’m wondering if they’re using them—like we’re using our guys here.”*  Mongo was doing one of his I-am-a-spineless-rubber-dog things and had twisted his own head around so he could lick Bella’s face as her head rested on his back.  Of course there was a lot of face to Bella. 

“Dad used to say that it was a conservation thing, the sheep,” I said.  “Managing wild grassland or something.”

Takahiro snorted.  “The only stuff that grows on the barrens is what can grow on the barrens.  They don’t need sheep for that.  And they had to import some kind of tough little feral sheep who could survive on what does grow there.”

Jill glanced in the rear view mirror at Takahiro.  “The things you know.”

“I have the secret gizmohead insignia tattooed over my heart,” said Takahiro.

“Whatever,” I said.  “This feels like the right direction.” 

“Good,” said Casimir.  “You feel it too.” . . .

The landscape changed as we got closer to the Old Barrens.  The big lush trees put in by the town council disappeared and the tougher, scrubbier trees of the barrens appeared to take their place.  The sourleaf grass that the sheep around the old army station had to live on began to show in clumps, especially in breaks in the paving.  The farmland was all on the other side of town, toward Copperhill;  this side there was only a polite strip of cultivated public land before the politeness began disintegrating into the barrens.  At first there were warehouses and big ugly slabs of grey industrial something or other and then they disappeared too.  Now we were in the barrens for real.  There were occasional sand-pits and increasing stretches of scraggy, grey-green sourleaf grass, turning yellow for autumn, and looking kind of ominous in the twilight.  We went click clack over the abandoned stretch of auxiliary railroad that had served the army base when Station had been a big town and the base had been open.  Officially open.

Jill turned the local radio on.  Even the usual burbling sounded subdued.  There was still nothing to worry about, said the presenter, trying to sound chirpy and failing, but since the schools and many businesses had decided to close temporarily while the army finished securing the situation—

“Situation?” said Jill. 

“Securing?” said Takahiro.

—much of the town had decided to take an unscheduled vacation. 

“Vacation?” Jill, Takahiro and I all said together. 

* * *

 * There are six dogs and a thirty-pound Maine Coon cat in the back of—ahem—the Mammothmobile that Jill is driving.  The six dogs are Bella, the wolfhound, a Mastiff named Elder Statesman because of the jowls, a greyhound named Athena, and, in Jill’s words, a dark-brown bear and a brindle utility vehicle.  Plus Mongo.

 

Knit faster! Knit faster!

 

I have SO no excuse for BUYING MORE YARN.*  And I was therefore appalled** when On Line Yarn Store from Some Location Out of HP Lovecraft or Possibly Arthur Machen sent me a THIRTY PER CENT OFF come-on for the Bank Holiday weekend just past.  Now how is any mere mortal*** going to RESIST a THIRTY PERCENT OFF proposition?

            Reader, I didn’t.†

            Some day, when I am feeling like embarrassing myself further, I’ll show you my Leg Warmer Stash.  One of the ways I pretend to be in (some kind of) control of my Yarn Acquisition Addiction†† is by fobbing myself off by buying two skeins of Something Pretty for leg warmers.  Something pretty and (usually) cheap.†††  I began my Bank Holiday weekend survival tactics by running up a shopping cart of leg warmer yarn.  But in the first place I ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH LEG WARMER YARN FOR THE ENTIRE CHORUS LINE AT THE FOLIES BERGERE‡ AND THE ROCKETTES and in the second place . . . hey.  This is thirty per cent off.  I need my two-skeins-for-leg-warmers trick to keep me from expiring from a lack of new stash over the rest of the year when I’m paying full price.

               So I conceived an Evil Plan.

                I like bulky yarn.  But the bulky yarn I like—ie wool rather than acrylic/nylon/polyester/naugahyde—I can NEVER AFFORD, especially when what I want is enough to make a cardigan or a jumper with.  I got New Cardi’s nice fat yarn as a discontinued remainder.  At thirty percent off Rowan or Debbie Bliss or Louisa Harding is still too expensive.  But it’s not as too expensive.

                A big bulgy soft parcel arrived yesterday.

Beeeeeyooooootiful.

It’s an appley, spring-y green, although probably not as yellow as it looks on your computer screen, with lots of tweedy green, yellow and white flecks.

This green stuff is recommended for 6.5 mm needles!  Big!  Fat!  Yaaaaaay!‡‡

And this is a dark true red–dark enough that my poor camera in the available light is having trouble focussing.

This is only 5 mm needles but hey.  (Furthermore, the way I knit, I’ll probably need 6 mm anyway.)  It’s also very tweedy, with flecks of black, red and the tiny odd glint of orange.  

                But those of you who have also been tempted and fallen to ordering yarn on line . . . you know how sometimes stuff arrives and you think . . . oh.  That’s not quite what I was expecting.  NOT THIS TIME.

                . . . However, speaking of multicoloured yarn and discontinued remainders  . . . one of the tangential advantages of being a small size and liking cropped things is that I can squeeze‡‡‡ v-neck three-quarter-sleeve cropped sweaters out of bin ends. 

Like this one. Mmmmmm.

This is my first Louisa Harding.  Mmmmmm.  They were having a sale anyway, and this was cheaper yet, I think because it’s not a popular colour, but I like it.  Dunno how it looks on your screen, but it’s a very pale yellow, with LUMPS, which I believe are properly called slubs.  I was hideously indoctrinated to Yarn with Lumps last year with various secret projects, and while the secret projects crashed and burned I did learn to deal with Lumpy Yarn, and I like the effect it makes.  But this is merino, alpaca and silk and . . . mmmmmm.

Now, speaking of MULTICOLOURED.

This is 100% WOOL§ and it is MULTI.  COLOURED.  I’m failing to do it justice—since I am, as usual, taking photographs indoors late at night without the flash because the flash always makes things worse—so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it is scarlet red, russet orange, plum brown and white with purple splotches.  Yum.  And enough other people liked it that this was a bin end.

                Knit faster!  Knit faster!

* * *

* And have I mentioned that Fiona and I are getting together next week?  Of course we don’t have to go on a Yarn Adventure.^ 

^ And the pope isn’t Catholic.

 ** No, really.  Appalled.  

*** That is, knitter.  I daresay people whose cough-cough leisure activities extend no farther than golf and stamp collecting would not whimper if offered a thirty-percent-off yarn voucher.  Although I’m sure they’d love knitting if they tried it.^  

^ Stamp cosies!  Golf ball hats! 

† Which is why I was appalled, of course.  I knew I was doomed. 

†† Some madwoman on the forum a little while ago was accusing me of ruining her perfect system by introducing her to the concept of stash.  ???!!!!!??!?!  I didn’t know there was a knitter on the planet^ who didn’t have stash.  Who taught this person to knit?  My introduction was:  knit, purl, stash^^.  I caught on to stash first.^^^   Granted my Obsessive Collector lobe was already well grown and established, not to say dominant.# 

^ Or off it, for that matter.  There has been some evidence that the Gflytch do something like knitting, although it involves tentacles and eye-stalks.  

^^ Fiona, I’m looking at you.  

^^^ Knit second, and purl a poor third.  

#  Okay.  Dominant.  ::Eyes book shelves:: 

††† Somebody tell me why the vast majority of the really fabulous mixed-colour yarns are acrylic or some other human-contrived substance?  Aside from my beginner’s phobia of relentlessly solid-colour yarn which will relentlessly display every foible, not to say error, I do have some really nice muted or tweedy multicolour wool—the yarn for First Cardi among these, and my new Bank Holiday transgressions—but the loud stuff tends to be not natural fibres.  I resist the idea that people who want to knit merino and alpaca and silk and cashmere merely suffer painfully from good taste.  

‡ Leg warmers being all they wear in that revue so the leg warmers need to be . . . um . . . 

‡‡ The main failure of this devilish plan is that this yarn in particular is SO UNBELIEVABLY tactile and seductive (85% wool, 15% angora) that I now want it in several other colours.  Desperately.  Want.  If I’d never FONDLED it this yearning wouldn’t be nearly as formidable.

            I’m already a Rowan junkie.  Sigh.  I bought this a little while ago because . . . because . . .

Also MULTICOLOURED.

‡‡‡ If believing what patterns tell you isn’t too foolish 

§ Of which some unspecified percentage is merino, which means it waved to a merino sheep on its way out of the factory, like those CASHMERE BLEND sweaters that turn out to be 98.2% cotton.

KES, 39

THIRTY NINE

 

“Shapes are interesting,” said Serena.  “And I wouldn’t be looking around on the floor of Mike’s garage if I didn’t spend so much time there waiting for you.”

“Sob sob grief,” said Gus.

“And I have only one boulder,” said Serena.  “It is a very good boulder, and it was worth hiring Ed and his winch to move it here.”

“Even if Ed now crosses to the other side of the street when he sees you coming.”

“Even if,” agreed Serena.

I had picked up a little wooden—something.  It was a little curled-up wooden something, with its nose under its front paws.  It might be a puppy.  I smiled at it.  Its spine was maybe three inches long, and as graceful as a swan’s neck.

“Oh yeah,” said Serena.  “I also dick around with woodworking a little.”

“Language,” said Gus delightedly.

“Sorry,” said Serena.  “Having someone in here actually looking at my stuff is bringing my ancient boho tendencies out of retirement.  I fool around with woodworking.  My siblings clubbed together a few years ago and got me a set of tools and I didn’t want them to feel unappreciated.  The siblings, I mean, not the tools.”

“No, you meant the tools,” said Gus.

“My siblings are wonderful human beings,” said Serena.  “They invite my son over for dinner and weekends and holidays, and expose him to normal life.”

“Aunt Anise is not normal.”

“We won’t go there,” said Serena.  “Although I do not dispute you.”

There was a distant, somewhat forlorn ping.

“Ah,” said Serena.  “Dinner calls.”

“I’m starving,” said Gus.

“How unusual,” said Serena.  “There is also broccoli and walnut salad.”

“Broccoli?” said Gus in horror.

Serena sighed.  “You’re not that starving, right?  I picked up some of Ryuu’s French beans in soy sauce for you, okay?”

“Okay,” said Gus without enthusiasm.

I was last out the door.  It’s hard, leaving Aladdin’s cave.  (Note to self:  it was time Flowerhair met a genie.  A female genie.)  I was standing on the threshold having a last look when there was a funny noise.  Click, it went.  Tuk-tuk-tuk-tik-click.  It wasn’t particularly loud, but it was extremely clear and definite.  I looked around, startled, for the piece of old car that had unexpectedly hot-wired itself.

“Well, well,” said Serena, who had come back to stand beside me in the doorway.  “You are exalted among mortals.  You not only got the comprehensive cold spot experience, you’re now receiving the gremlin endorsement code.  Not many of our visitors do.  Nobody from my family.  None of Gus’ friends.”

“Not Mike,” said Gus, “who really wants to.”

“Poor Mike,” said Serena.  “We’ve told him it’s a mechanical noise, and he’s inclined to take it personally that it won’t perform for him.”

“He thinks he could identify it,” said Gus.

“Which is probably why it won’t play,” said Serena.  “At least he doesn’t just think I’m having an attack of artistic temperament.”

“Mom,” said Gus.  “You got this house cheap because everyone knows it’s haunted.”

“Sort of,” said Serena.  “The locals don’t like it and incomers are mostly looking for a romantic lake retreat.  We’ve got the campground and trailer park on one side and a sort of mini industrial park on the other.  This house was already cheap.  It was just a little cheaper.  And an artist moving into a haunted house, and corrupting her son’s innocent mind?  Please.  So we don’t make an issue of it.”

Tick, said the gremlin.

“Nighty-night,” said Serena, and gently closed the door.

“You leave a bowl of milk out for the hob,” I said thoughtfully, as Serena pulled a heavenly-smelling dish out of the oven, and Gus took plates out of a cupboard.  “I’m not sure what you do for a cold spot and a—er—gear shaft.”

“We do the best we can,” said Serena.  “Aaugh.  Gooey.  I’m too hungry to wait, and it’ll cool faster on our plates.  The coat rack in the hall is right next to the cold spot, and the black velvet cape is there for it.  Nobody wears it.  And there’s a bowl of nuts and bolts and old keys and broken-off bits that are—er—interesting shapes of themselves, in a corner by the bay window.  I wouldn’t want to say that anything ever moves them around.  But I wouldn’t want to say nothing ever does either.”  She took a large bowl and a small cardboard box out of the refrigerator and put them on the table, the box in front of Gus.  “I hope,” she said to me, “that you do not think broccoli is evil?”

“I love broccoli,” I said.  “It’s my favorite vegetable.”

Gus, reluctantly opening his box, gave me a look.  It said, middle-aged women are all alike, and not in a good way.

“Favorite green vegetable,” I amended.  “Sweetcorn comes first.”

“Sweetcorn to die for, around here,” said Serena.  “August and September, every farm stand has truckloads of it.  And it’s all fabulous.”

“Excellent,” I said, giving myself a little more broccoli just to watch the expression on Gus’ face.  “I knew there was a reason I was moving here.”

 

A few of my favourite things, part 3 – guest post by b_twin

(Part 1 -link)

(Part 2 -link)

Part 3:
Castles & Ruins

History was always one of my favourite subjects in school. Getting out there and into some textbook history is so amazing. And staring at castles and ruins and all that stonework just gives me goosebumps. An active imagination can be very useful also.

Here are a handful of (the hundreds of) shots I took when I visited the UK.

~ Lindisfarne ~

The little tidal island of Lindisfarne  – “Holy Island” – sits on the Northumbrian coastline not far from Bamburgh Castle. It was an important place for centuries and features figures such as St Aidan and St Cuthbert in its history. The ruins of the 12th Century Priory are here as well as a small fortress constructed in the 16th Century.

Lindisfarne Priory

 

Lindisfarne Castle

The day that we visited, it was a glorious day with a mild breeze – not bad considering it is notorious for its poor weather….

(Movie buffs may recognise Lindisfarne Castle as the “Mont St Pierre” in the 80s tele-movie ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’ starring Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour.)

 

~ Bamburgh Castle ~

One of the royal residences of the ancient Kings of Northumbria. The gale coming in off the North Sea seemed so fitting and made for some bleak atmosphere.

Bamburgh Castle - front entrance

 

Bamburgh Castle - internal walls (built at different stage to entrance)

Side-note: The Victorian-era stables were… interesting!

Bamburgh Castle - Victorian-era stable

 

 

And still in Northumbria –

~ Chillingham Castle ~

Chillingham Castle - courtyard

Not actually a ruin, although it was derelict about 50 years ago. It’s a small baronial castle – and we stayed there!

Chillingham Castle - exterior

 

~ Whitby Abbey ~

Further down along the coast is another well-known Abbey ruin: Whitby Abbey.

Whitby Abbey on a summer day

Perched high on cliffs overlooking the sea it must have been a pretty tough place to live and work. The remains of the Abbey (destroyed by not only The Dissolution but also bombs during the World Wars) attract a lot of visitors and yet they still seem to hold a vast serenity.

Whitby Abbey - upper walkway

(Have I mentioned I have a “thing” for doorways….? Probably a blog’s worth of pics. ;-) )

Again, I was absolutely blessed the days I visited (I stayed overnight in the Youth Hostel next door). Very pleasant weather – apparently you are “supposed” to get gale force winds and dull overcast weather!! I didn’t miss them a bit.

 

~ Rievaulx Abbey ~

One of the many victims to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Rievaulx is tucked away in a secluded Yorkshire valley.

Rievaulx Abbey

 

Rievaulx Abbey - inside the ruined church

Rievaulx Abbey is similar in many ways to Fountains Abbey. Just a little harder to get to and so a few less tourists. It certainly has a different atmosphere. At the time I felt almost like Fountains had lost its soul and was just a shell – magnificent nevertheless but still only a shell. Whereas Rievaulx still had the soul of a place of worship but that it was abandoned – and lonely. Maybe there was something in the Yorkshire water… ;) In any case, I found I preferred Rievaulx and its haunting grandeur.

~ Fountains Abbey ~

 

Fountains Abbey

Fountains Abbey

 

 

One of the things I love about visiting castles, especially, is to see the evidence of fortifications and the everyday functionality of the structures.

~ Pickering Castle  ~

A small baronial fortress tucked away in the Yorkshire countryside.

Pickering Castle - illustrating the "long drop" sewerage system!

 

Pickering Castle - approaching the Sallyport (internal)

 

Pickering Castle - External view of the Sallyport

 

~ Stirling Castle ~

Stirling has some good examples of defensive architecture still visible.

Stirling Castle - inside the wall, approaching a guard station

Going through the wall into one of the guard rooms.

 

Stirling Castle - remains of gate hinges and barricading mechanisms

Early “combination lock”? hehe Jokes aside, that’s set up for some serious lumps of wood!

Stirling Castle - defensive structures now become gardens :)

 

And finally, a birds-eye view of the “front door” to Warwick Castle:

Warwick Castle - Barbican and Gatehouse

Makes our “security screen doors” looks pretty inadequate!!

 

There are many, many castles in the UK – in varying states of decomposition – and I’ve really only been to a handful. This means that one day I will have to try and get back….