Robin McKinley's Blog, page 91

Epic, continued

 

I didn’t sleep very well last night (again) so I didn’t get up very early today (ahem).  I finally rolled out of bed because the phone was ringing dranglefab it usually I remember to unplug the freller.

            It was Peter.  I don’t know if they tried you first, he said*, but the garage just rang.  Wolfgang is ready. 

            READY? I said.  You mean they FIXED HIM?

            I guess, said Peter.  You’d better talk to them.  But they seem to be expecting you to pick him up.

            So I rang the garage.  Yes, Wolfgang was ready.  Yes, he started.  Yes, the itinerant electrician had immediately discovered that the ignition switch was faulty, which had been replaced.  Ignition has to be live all the time the car is running, so if it cuts out the car dies.  And of course this also explained the erratic non-starting fault.

            Of course.

            It’s a beautiful day.**  Hellhounds and I enjoyed our four- or five-mile hurtle cross country to Warm Upford.***  I arrived at the garage with a song on my lips and a little prance to my step—rather similar to the innocent delight I was experiencing as I stepped on the Drollbody bus yesterday.  I was looking around for Wolfgang—it seemed to me highly unlikely that if there’d been a sudden raid by pirates they would have included a 17-year-old VW in their haul—when Martha came out of the office and gave me the key.  He’s† parked down the road, she said.  We’ve run out of room.

            So we sallied down the road.  I unsnapped leads and put hellhounds in their bed in the back seat.  I lowered the windows, because the weather is pretending to be mid June.††  I climbed into the driver’s seat.  I put the key in the little hole.  I fastened my seat belt.

            I turned the key in the little hole.

            And Wolfgang did not start.

            Let me repeat that.  Wolfgang.  DID.  NOT.  START.  THERE WAS NO STARTING.  THERE WAS NO DRIVING BACK TO NEW ARCADIA WITH A CAR THAT STARTED.

            There was, however, language.  Wolfgang was making exactly the not-connected-to-the-whatsit noise that we began with.  Months ago.  There was more language.  Then I noticed that the village infant school seemed to be having recess slap next to the village hall car park—that’s a jolly silly place to have an infant school playground—so I swallowed a few more outbursts, put the leads back on the hellhounds—who were not pleased with this development:  they’d had their hurtle, thank you very much, and some serious lying-down was in order—and stalked back to the garage, all traces of prancing gone.  I stalked past the office to the business end of the garage and found poor Blaze, kneeling beside a car.  He looked up in surprise.

            My.  Car.  Does.  Not.  Start, I said. 

            He blinked.  And then, to his credit, he got up and followed me back down the road to where Wolfgang sat,††† pretending (badly) to be a car that started.  The only—the ONLY—even faintest gleam of a silver lining to all this is that at least Wolfgang made his noise again.  I think I might have had to trash the village hall or tear up the car park tarmac with my bare hands or something if he’d started then.  At least Blaze has now HEARD THE NOISE.

            However, he went on hearing it, since he still couldn’t get Wolfgang started.  His dad—who originally owned the garage, and is now Blaze’s back up—appeared, bringing more clobber.  They had bits of Wolfgang all over the car park, and enough kit and tools merely to build another car, although that doesn’t seem to have occurred to them.  Meanwhile . . . I didn’t have my knitting.  I didn’t have ANYTHING TO DO. ‡ Nightmare.‡‡ 

            They never did get Wolfgang started.  But Paxton borrowed Martha’s car—Martha has dogs, and there’s a dog bed in the back of her car—and drove us home.  And I sadly rearranged my knapsack for carrying down to the mews and a very late lunch.  We’d left at about one.  We arrived at the mews a little before four. 

            And what have I learned from today’s further epic?

Always take your knitting.  Always.  I had brought it with me when we drove out Sunday afternoon to leave Wolfgang for early Monday morning, in case we spent several hours by the side of the road waiting for the RAC.  And I had thus discovered that the Mobile Knitting Unit hangs very neatly around my neck and over my shoulder and tucks in companionably with Pooka’s little pink leather bag.  So I have no excuse.  Except a foolish belief in the fixedness of cars.
Always take your camera.  There may be a puppy.
Live in a city, where everything is walking distance anyway, and there are things like buses [sic], trains and taxis. 

* * *

* If they did, I slept through it and they didn’t leave a message.  Let me just say, tranquilly and en passant, that I’m the only member of this family who still drives, but Peter is still perceived as The Bloke—like this means something.  Life is short and I’m apparently not going to live long enough to see the blue-collar end of the labour force—mechanics, electricians, plumbers, gardeners, painters, window cleaners^, whatever—stop knee-jerking trad gender roles.  I dare say there are exceptions.  None of them seem to live in this end of Hampshire.  

^ Although Peter has a window cleaner that I am just going to lose it some day and murder out of hand.  I will dance upon his eviscerated body and sing paeans to Kali.  And then all the women in the neighbourhood will help me bury the body. 

** It’s a beautiful day I could have spent several hours of in the garden, potting on replacement petunias, weeding, deadheading, and hanging out with adolescent robins.  

*** Driving back from Curlyewe last night in that last looooooooong late light of English summer evenings Niall and I were making jokes about hey, Hampshire, this looks like a nice place to live.  Hampshire is not top of any of the standard lists of Beautiful England and this is a good thing.  We have enough of a tourist/incomer problem as it is.  Hey, why are you looking at me like that?  I’ve lived in Hampshire longer than Niall has.  

†  Okay, it’s.  

††  Ha ha ha. 

††† The owner of the car he was deserting would not consider this to his credit, of course, but I was there.  And I was ugly.  And I’m taller than he is, and I have hellhounds.^ 

^ Hee hee hee hee hee  

‡ I did have ten minutes of Furry Delight.  Blaze has a puppy.  And I went back to the garage again to steal her water bowl long enough to give hot hellhounds some water.  When I returned it we had Puppy Time.  And you’re buying a dog for a working garage, what are you going to get?  An Alsatian?  A Mastiff?  Even a Dalmatian?  Or the ubiquitous black Lab?  Nope.  King Charles spaniel.  And from the size of her feet she’s going to grow up to be teeny.    

‡‡ I do in fact have a book of gardening essays by different people in one of Wolfgang’s door pockets for just this sort of emergency.  The problem is that the poor book has become over the years associated in my mind with Bad Moments When I Have Nothing to Do That Are Something About Cars and Transportation Gone Wrong and I can’t actually read it any more.  I should bring it indoors and replace it with THE COMPLETE JUDGE DREDD or something else that will soothe and uplift me in moments of stress and crisis.

Epic

 

Today has been EPIC.  Unnecessarily so. 

            I wasted a remarkable amount of time over the weekend, trying to figure out how to get to Sorghumlea by bus.  I was not going to miss my voice lesson for a mere frippery like a dead car.*  Ah, Great Britain, land of functioning, country-wide public transportation.  In the first place, the bus timetable sites are all run by an inbred cabal of malicious gnomes.  Who don’t speak English.  And who don’t count very well either.  Or tell time.  And they certainly can’t read maps.  At one point I was trying to find the schedule for the last and longest leg of my return journey, from Mauncester to New Arcadia.  I was on the HAMPHIRE site.  I kept typing in ‘Mauncester.  New Arcadia.’  And the web site, which had been showing me the outward journey from New Arcadia to Mauncester thirty seconds before, said primly, ‘you are asking for information outside our range’, and threw a map of western England—Dorset, Devon, Somerset, Cornwall, on the screen.  ARRRRRGH.  It did this several times.  It did this after I’d refreshed, and after I’d closed down and started over.  It would show me my way out . . . but not my way home.**  It also refused to acknowledge a bus stop it had marked on the map.  I knew it existed in real life because I drive past it on my way to and from Nadia every week.  I’ve even seen people getting on and off, and some of them turn and walk down the long slope toward Sorghumlea.  And there it was on the map for the route to some OTHER bus stop but nooooooo, it did not exist.

            It was not one of those occasions when I remembered to sing instead of scream.***

            I finally found it ON ANOTHER SITE.  Hey, competing bad Hampshire bus schedule sites.  What an interesting approach to serving the public.   It is, furthermore, listed as being in some other town.  You’re in Mauncester and you’re rolling up the hill toward Sorghumlea.  Off to the east, on the far side of Sorghumlea, there is Drollbody.  On the far side, okay?  THE FAR SIDE.  But this bus stop is listed as being in DROLLBODY and if you want a schedule for it you have to look at the DROLLBODY SCHEDULE. 

            Meanwhile . . . tonight’s the night the Muddlehamptons are interviewing candidates for their new musical director.  In fact—have I moaned to you about this already?  I’ve done a lot of moaning about it in various venues—I suspect the Muddles and I are going to part ways permanently due to a few little practical aspects like the loolessness of rehearsals, and Nadia telling me that the number-one reason for tired crackly voices is dehydration and I MUST take water to rehearsal and I MUST DRINK IT.  Two and a quarter hours plus a half hour commute and no loo? . . . no, I must not drink water, tea, champagne, or the blood of the parish council who hasn’t seen fit to install a loo in the old Muddlehampton church.  But the non-musical director, Gordon—I’m not sure what his title is, but I like him, and he runs everything but the actual singing, and steps in there too when the proper MD is caught in a traffic jam in Dorset, Devon, Somerset or Cornwall—says that this is an issue that comes up and will come up again as part of the changeover to a new MD and he’ll keep me posted.  But they’ve been practising at St Frideswide for a very long time and I doubt anything will happen.  Therefore I’m probably looking for a new choir.†

            HOWEVER I would like to see whom they snabble for their new MD, and the interviews were tonight.  I emailed Gordon about my transportation problems†† and he said someone could give me a ride back but—particularly when I didn’t know if I was going to look up from my knitting and discover I was in Dorset, Devon, Somerset or Cornwall—he couldn’t promise a ride to.  Sigh.  So I said I’d take a taxi from Mauncester if all went well.

            It didn’t, of course.  The bus from New Arcadia to Mauncester was seven minutes late, and I had only ten minutes to make my connection to Drollbody.  You can get a lot of knitting done on a bus, supposing you aren’t wasting too much time worrying.†††  The young man with the earring behind the wheel put his foot down, and we made up the time.  So I pranced gaily downstairs at the bus depot and there, lo!  There was the bus I wanted, with the right banner heading on display, and it was even parked in the slot with the right number on it.  Yaaaaaaay.

            I darted across and sprang onto this beautiful, excellent, existing bus.  And asked for Drollbody Corner.  The driver looked at me and shook his head.  I don’t go that far, he said.  You need the 772.465Aaa(x) bus.  It only runs once an hour, and you’ve missed it.

            My voice lesson, at that point, was about fifty minutes off.  And even if I could get to Drollbody Corner it was a fifteen or twenty minute walk from there.

            Well, where do you go? I said. 

            In Drollbody? said the driver, who was not being a passive-aggressive creep or anything, just telling me what’s on the ground rather than on some (*&^%$£”!!!!! web site. 

            I’m trying to get to Sorghumlea, I said.

            Oh, said the driver.  I can drop you at the corner of Pigglefwamp Avenue, opposite the leisure centre.‡

            Great, I said. Thanks.  And sat down.  And got out my knitting.‡‡

           I was toiling up the last long slope to Nadia’s mum’s house, having double-timed from Pigglefwamp Avenue, when Pooka chirruped.  I of course panicked instantly because it was going to be the dog minder telling me something terrible and . . . it was a text from Niall, saying, Do you fancy Curlyewe this evening?

            No, I texted back.  I still have a dead car, and I’m in Sorghumlea for my voice lesson and it’s going to take me till Wednesday to get home on the bus. 

            There was a pause while, I assume, Niall the Seriously Mentally Disturbed looked at a map.  Curlyewe is on the wrong side of Mauncester from Sorghumlea by a considerable margin.

            I’ll pick you up, texted Niall.  When is your voice lesson over?

            NO BUSES, I thought.  NO BUSES.  I’d already decided—toiling up that slope—that I wasn’t even going to try for Muddlehampton.  And I might take a taxi home anyway. 

            ???!!!!???? I texted.  Then I phoned Peter.  I’m going to Curlyewe, I said.  Niall is picking me up at Nadia’s. 

            Great, said Peter.  Now remember to eat something. 

            Feh.  If it weren’t for the sodding ME, I could have given up eating entirely when I hit menopause.  I could just have a little chocolate occasionally when I was in the mood.

            Niall was at the bottom of Nadia’s driveway when I came out.  And he handed me a bag of fruit.  You have to eat something, he said.  ALL RIGHT.  ALL RIGHT.  ALL RIGHT.  So I had a pear, a banana and an apple.

            We sprinted across country to Curlyewe—and it’s perfectly true that teaching people handbells is a lot easier with a second person to provide ballast.  And then we stayed on to ring tower bells—I admit that the niceness of Curlyewe’s tower bells enters into consideration—and hellhounds were very glad to see me when I finally got home.  And we hurtled down to the mews for supper.‡‡‡

            And to an email from Gordon saying that due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control they’re going to do it all again next Monday. 

* * *

* No, of course I haven’t heard from the garage.  I will ring them tomorrow.  Sigh.  

** Hmmmmmm. 

*** Unfortunately it was warm enough over the weekend to have the windows open—not summer warm, mind you, but warm enough that you could sit around in only one woolly layer. 

† Which is not going to be easy in the back woods of Hampshire.  Nadia says that the Lesser Disconcerting area has half a dozen good amateur choirs^ but Lesser Disconcerting requires serious motorway driving, not the little piffling stretch to get to the abbey. 

^ begging the question of how good an applicant needs to be 

†† One of the most, MOST irresistibly charming facts about bus service in this area of Hampshire is that it ends comprehensively at about 7 pm.  Which means if you want to do anything in the evening you have to have a car.  Bell ringing starts at 7:30, you know?  The Muddles start at 7:45. 

††† I was, of course, sitting on the upper level.^  Britain’s double-decker buses would be another reason to live here if I used the bus system more than about once a year.  And I was very distracted by being able to see over all those fences the hellhounds and I walk past every day, and look at all those hidden gardens.   Oooh. 

^ It fascinates me that not everybody makes a rush to the stair.  Not only were there more people sitting downstairs, but I got a front seat, where you rule.  

‡ There is no doubt a reason why the British call something that is essentially a gym and exists to provide you with the most efficient means to sweat and pant and raise your heart rate and improve your lung capacity and so on a leisure centre.  

‡‡ I also had a surreal conversation with the woman in the seat opposite, who wanted to tell me there was a short cut to Sorghumlea.  She was probably right.  But since she didn’t know any of the street names her explanation that ‘it goes like this’ with appropriate hand gesture and ‘then you kind of bear right at the big tree’ was not wholly satisfactory. 

‡‡‡ I had a LAMB CHOP, okay?

KES, 19

 

NINETEEN  

“I’m a city girl,” I said. “And I read too much Lovecraft at a tender age.  I was sure it was Cthulhu coming up the stairs.  Or Yog-Sothoth.”

Hayley crowed with laughter again, as if it had been startled out of her.  “Oh, my brother started me on Lovecraft!  He and his friends were always playing Arkham Horror, Mansions of Madness.  Our bedrooms, we told our mom, were altars to Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos!”

I laughed.  Hey, a blue-blazer-wearing cheerleader who read Lovecraft.  Life is funny.  “Which was your favorite?” I said, to keep her from sliding away from me again.  “The Rats in the Walls knocked me over when I read it, but you can really only read it once—after that you can’t help noticing it doesn’t really work.  But I used to reread The Dunwich Horror every time my family was getting on my nerves.” 

“Oh, The Rats in the Walls!” said Hayley, suddenly solemn, but staring at me intensely.  “Do you remember—the narrator talks about his son as a motherless boy?  As if he was a clone, or Pinocchio, or something.”

This time I was the one who looked away.  Yes.  This was one of the places where Flowerhair had been born.  Cthulhu meets Red Sonja.  And Cthulhu loses.  I ran my hands through my hair, which I usually only did when I was sitting at my computer staring at an intractable bit of story.

Hayley made a restless movement.  Clip clack went her heels on the floor.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “My boss would kill me if she found out I scared off someone who wanted to rent one of our houses by one of my rants on feminism.  How much of the house did you see before Ron—interrupted you?”

“Just the big parlour, really,” I said.  “I spent some time staring out the window, counting triffids.”  I raised my eyebrows at her.

“John Wyndham,” she said demurely. 

“He wasn’t very good on women either,” I said provocatively.

But Hayley was back in her blue blazer.  “Better than Lovecraft,” she said firmly.  “Did you look at the dining room?”

“Damning with faint praise,” I murmured.

“Would you like to see the cellar?” said Hayley, a little louder than necessary.

“No,” I said.  “I mean, not right now.  It has a fuse box in it.  That’ll do.”

The corners of Hayley’s mouth were turning up again.  “And the furnace.  And the washing machine.”

Ah.  The washing machine.  I would have to learn to love the cellar.

“And lots of lovely storage space.”

Storage space.  Unh.  Maybe I could donate it to charity.  “And rats in the walls,” I said. 

“No rats in the walls,” said Hayley.  “Maybe a few chipmunks.”

“Skunks?”

“Don’t leave the cellar door open and you’ll be fine,” said Hayley.  “You see the kitchen is generously proportioned, and the big window lets lots of light in.  It does need a little updating . . .”

It had needed updating twenty years ago.   I liked old, and I could deal with grotty.  Also I didn’t have a lot of choice, in Cold Valley or anywhere else.  I needed cheap.  Grotty was cheap. 

“ . . . but everything is fully functional, and there is this beautiful table . . .”

Even if the chairs commute from the parlour.

Hayley’s realtor’s patter began to blur.  There were a big closet, a half bath and a medium-sized officey sort of room downstairs that I’d missed in my first amble through, and then the stairs to the second floor, where the round tower stuck out from the square base of the officey room downstairs.  There seemed to be a lot more bedrooms than the three listed, but the walls also seemed to come at you from peculiar angles—maybe that was the effect of the tower—as if, if you stopped to count, you’d find some dimension or other was missing, the seventh or the eleventh or the eight-hundred-and-fourteenth.  Then there was the attic, or attics, including the pointy witch’s-hat second and final round tower room.  There was no sign of the madwoman, or of pulled-off wallpaper strips (or teethmarks, rodent or otherwise).   There were inhospitable-looking beds in two of the bedrooms and a chest of drawers in one, and a gigantic wardrobe in an otherwise empty room:  there had to be another world opening out of the back of it.  I could check later, after I’d signed the lease. 

The vast bathroom was as unupdated as the kitchen, but with a similar grotty charm.  It had the inevitable claw-foot bath—and no shower.  Hayley’s professional spiel went into hyperdrive about the lack of a shower, which was fun to watch, but I didn’t mind that much.  Gelasio had had a black and silver wet room installed in the penthouse a few years ago, which was amusing for soapy lovemaking, but if I wanted to wash, I reverted to the bathtub (and a paperback book I wouldn’t mourn too much if I dropped it).  Maybe he had fallen for the girlfriend because she had more similar tastes in bathrooms.

Don’t think about it.  Don’t think about it.  I was moving on. 

I was moving here.

Frustrations, various

 

So I rang the garage again yesterday morning*—Friday.  There was this electrician specialist bloke who was supposed to come Thursday morning who by the end of the working day had still not shown.**  Blaze said he would assertively pursue the issue*** Friday morning.  Late Friday morning, like maybe one o’clock in the afternoon, the electrician was still somewhere else.  I’ll ring you as soon as I talk to him, said Blaze—the idea being that since he is a wayfaring sort of electrician, he could come here and pay Wolfgang a diagnostic housecall.

            Hours passed.  I drank (more) tea.  I worked on SHADOWS.†   I hurtled hounds.  I staggered to Oisin’s house carrying my sheet music and then he had house guests and . . . well, you don’t think I’m going to sing with Other People one flimsy hollow modern presswood door away, do you?††  I didn’t have time to limp home and unload, so I staggered straight on to Niall’s for handbells. †††  Where Gemma was sympathetic and, more to the point, gave me a ride back to the cottage after.

            And Blaze did, in fact, finally ring.  The perambulating electrician is not coming New Arcadia way, so would I please bring Wolfgang in for Monday morning??

            Whimper.

            And so, some time tomorrow‡, hellhounds and I will be setting out for Warm Upford . . . at least theoretically.  I’m thinking I’d better start trying in the morning, in case Wolfgang doesn’t start in the first place but might eventually get into the mood later on.  We will take our heavy mountaineering harnesses, of course, in case we have to get out and pull.   

* * *

Meanwhile . . . I finished my second second swatch—after ripping out the wedge-shaped one, you may remember?  I switched not merely from 6 mm needles to 6.5, I also switched from rosewood to bamboo needles.  And as I readjusted to the bamboo, my rows started shrinking.  So I ripped it out and started over.  Arrrgh.  AND GUESS WHAT?  THE NEW SWATCH IS STILL TOO SMALL.  AAAAAAAAUGGGGGH.  The first swatch, on 6 mm needles, was six and a half inches.  The swatch on 6.5 mm needles, is seven inches.  AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGGGGGGH.  I’m not sure I want to knit on 7 mm, they’re huge. 

            It was at this interesting juncture that I read an interview with Meg Swanson, daughter of the legendary knitter Elizabeth Zimmermann, who is totally carrying on the family tradition.‡‡  And they were talking about how Elizabeth started her famous newsletter, basically because the knitting admin in those days only wanted to publish stuff that approached knitting their way, and her way was not their way.

            Then the interviewer says:  What else would Elizabeth tell her readers?

            And Meg answers:  That ripping is a part of knitting.  That you are the boss of your knitting and can do what you like.  For instance, I don’t like to swatch;  I will cast on 300 stitches‡‡‡ and work for several inches—then if I don’t like it I’ll rip it out and start again, rather than knit a 30-inch swatch.  Knitter’s Choice! . . . Elizabeth was a great proponent for the idea that there is no ‘wrong’ in knitting:  if you get the results you wanted, it is right. . . .

            So, ratbag it.  I’m tired of frelling swatching, and I’m still near enough the beginning of my Knitting Journey that it’s all educational anyway, and 6.5 mm is big enough, I don’t want to knit on anything bigger right now.  So I cast on for First Cardi—and since I am of course bang between two sizes, at least it meant my choice was clearly for the larger—and I’ll knit a few inches and see where the awful frell I am. . . . 

* * *

* Not too early.  Ahem.  They had lots of time to have got themselves sorted in a suitably garage-like way before I rang. 

** So garages have their little frustrations too. 

*** These may not have been his exact words. 

† I am having to make up my tiny mind about things like how many Japanese phrases Maggie and her friend Jill—have you met Jill?  I can’t remember—have hooked off the internet equivalent, called the webnet there.  Short answer:  not many.  But how many is not many?  So I put in Kaeru no ko kaeru because it amuses me, and some Japanese site or other claims it’s a proverb^ and then I take it back out again because generally speaking amusing yourself is not a strong criterion for inclusion.^^   Also if Takahiro opens his mouth—I can’t remember if you’ve met Takahiro either?—he’d better get it right.  Sigh.  Remind me to send a note to the Story Council to add to my file:  Does Not Do Known This-Earth Foreign Languages.^^^  Meanwhile I am not enjoying schlepping my grammars and dictionaries back and forth to and from cottage and mews in my knapsack, since it is guaranteed whichever one(s) I leave behind will be the one(s) I want at the other end.  Now. 

            The fact that I know that it’ll be like every other spasm of research/reading up/studying I’ve ever done and that 99% of it will not show in the finished story—like all those books on bees I read for CHALICE—is not helping.#  Also, when I was reading books about bees I had a car.##  

^ ‘The child of a frog is a frog.’  Besides, the Japanese cultural attitude toward frogs may not reflect the small, green and icky sensibility of, say, The Frog Prince. 

^^ Which is one of the things KES is for.  If it amuses me it’s in.  

^^^ I’m keeping a wary eye on the chief cook at the Eatsmobile.  His fondness for classic American diner food comforts me.  But I can’t feel easy about his background and he may revert under stress or something.  Also I suspect he may have a sister who . . . . mmmph.  Well, you’ll find out in due course.  Or not.  Depending on whether I find out. 

# Although I’m still hoping to take some language lessons.  In my copious free time.  

## Do Vespas come with two-hellhound sidecars?+ 

+ Not recently, apparently.  http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C310368 

†† They were supposed to be out.  Last Friday he promised they’d be OUT this Friday afternoon.  We were thus betrayed into discussing cars.  Oisin actually knows about cars.  How very alarming.  He started telling me things in CAR LANGUAGE.  The one factoid I plucked out of this terrifying display, however, is that he doesn’t think I have to give up on Wolfgang yet.  YAAAAAAAAY.  Which is what our so-far-as-I-know-only practising mechanic on the forum, Gomoto, says also.  One of the things I’m thinking is that Wolfgang is flapdoodling German engineering.  Flapdoodling German engineering is supposed to be good for decades.  Wolfgang hasn’t even reached his majority yet.  

††† Usually this happens at the cottage.  The fates conspire.  Although I was still going to have to get hellhounds and sheet music back to the mews.  But I don’t have to carry hellhounds. 

‡ Since I don’t really do mornings, the deal is that I take it out the night before and put the key through the office door.  And hellhounds and I have a nice walk home.  If we’re not exhausted from pulling. 

‡‡ Although I feel that her Schoolhouse Press exists to appall the beginner.  http://www.schoolhousepress.com/  Look at the stuff these people claim to knit.  

‡‡‡ Note:  yeeeeeeeep.

The Skype version 7 May 12

 

Given the interest in how Cathy and I are trying to do the Cathy-and-I bits, we thought you might like to see the First Ever Bilateral Summit.  The date at the head—7 May—is accurate, and we did it way before I’d got anywhere near that far in the ep writing, so, for example, we thought Kes and Hayley would be meeting at the house.   And we did it by—is it instant messaging?—I forget what it’s called—but you have a window on Skype where your and anyone else’s typing appears almost immediately—almost—which means the back-and-forth frequently gets a little misaligned.  But here is what happened, only slightly tidied up for general consumption. 

Cathy:  She’s somehow got there ahead of the realtor.  She can poke around the house as much as you like, of course… but then we have a sort of shuffle scuffle SNAP noise from the basement.

Robin: Oh [expletive deleted]–she says.  Remember she’s a city girl.  The crickets make her nervous.  She freezes.  Maybe she’ll wait till Hayley gets here.  Then she hears the noise again (?).  [EXPLETIVE DELETED].  [Note to self:  invent 'frelling' equivalent for her.]  Hey, if she’s going to live here she’s going to have to deal with stuff like NOISES IN THE CELLAR.  [EXPLETIIIIIIIVE DELEEEEEEEEEETED].  Of course she can’t find the light switch.  She gets a flashlight out of the van and . . .

Cathy: The noise has moved.  It’s coming up the steps.  Shuffle–scraaape–shuffle—scraaaape

Cathy: (this can happen during her moment of indecision about waiting for Hayley, or you can push it later)

Cathy: But generally, don’t get too far ahead on the timeline; sometimes something will happen before you’ve got time to go for the flashlight, if you take my meaning

Robin: AAAAAAAAAAAUGH.  She’s standing frozen at the top of the stairs with her hand on the cellar door.  There’s no way to bolt the door from this side, yes?  She looks for a bolt.  No bolt.  AAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.  Maybe she can live in one room with cockroaches in the nice safe city after all .. . .

Robin:  Okay.  She DOESN’T have a flashlight.  She thought of the flashlight before IT started shambling up the stairs.

Cathy: It’s at the top of the stairs–she feels the knob turn under her hand

Robin: AAAAAAAAAAAUGH.  –I favour her standing there like a dummy rather than running like [expletive deleted], but I would take advice on this.  :)

Cathy: Well she’s going to get hit by the door when it opens, she might take a step or two back.  :)

Robin: Fine.  She backs up a semi paralytic step or two.  I’ll also have to figure out the floor plan.  Is she backing into a wall?  Into the kitchen?  Is it going to matter?

Cathy: not at the moment

Cathy: door swings open

Cathy: and she sees

THERE’S A TWENTY SECOND PAUSE HERE, PRODUCING:

Robin: [EXPLETIVE DELETED] YOU HAMAKER

Cathy: a monstrous metal robot thing with

Cathy: no wait, I’m sorry

Cathy: it’s a dwarf carrying a metal stepladder

Cathy: He’s wearing jeans and a workbelt

Robin: It’s a WHAT?  –this is her reaction.  I’m sitting here totally cool and intellectual.  :)

Cathy: His hands and face are smeared with dusty grime from the basement

Cathy: He’s about 4.5′ tall, with dark curly hair

Cathy: He is as startled to see her as she is to see him

Robin: Ooh.  Is he cute?  –No, this is me.  She’s beyond cute at this point, I think. 

Cathy: Well, he’s a bit older than Kes, but not bad looking.  A little salt and pepper in the hair.

Robin: Okay.  This is interesting.  :)

Cathy: He’s stopped at the top of the stairs.  Does she scream, or anything like that, or shall we just proceed?

Robin: No, she’s gobsmacked.  She thought she was about to die and is having trouble readjusting.   Also, AAAAAAUGH to the contrary notwithstanding, she’s not a screamer.  She’ll have been thinking AAAAAAAAUGH and muttering expletivedeletedEXPLETIVEDELETEDRUMSODOMYANDTHELASHEXPLETIVEDELETED under her breath.  She’ll just stand there staring and be incapable of saying or doing anything. 

Cathy: The dwarf regains his composure first.  He says, “Sorry–are you looking for something?”

Robin: Er, she quavers.  I’m–er–waiting for–er–the realtor who’s showing me this house.  To rent.  Er.

Cathy: “Oh!”  The light goes on.  “Oh, I’m sorry–you’re the new renter, are you?”

Robin: [expletive deleted] (she thinks) gossip travels fast.  I haven’t SAID I’m renting yet.  “Er,” she says (out loud).  “Well, that’s the plan.  Sort of.  I guess.”  She hesitates.  “I’m from the city, and I–er–decided I wanted to live in Cold Valley but I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”  She looks around.  “This house is bigger than I had in mind, but I want to get a dog, and the other house Hayley offered doesn’t allow pets.”  You’re babbling, she tells herself.  Shut up.

Cathy: the dwarf has narrowed his eyes thoughtfully as she’s talking, and seems to be giving her a careful once-over.  “Well, you’ll do, I expect.”  While she’s wondering what the hell THAT means, he steps out into the hallway and sets down the ladder and the toolbox he’d been carrying.  “Yep–it’s big enough, true that.  Plenty of room for dogs.  You say you’re from the city–you sure you’ll like living up here?  Gets mighty quiet, this place.”  As she’s responding to this, he’s going to walk into the kitchen (it’s that door, right there,) step up on the stepstool which someone has kindly placed at the sink, and begin washing his hands.

Robin: Yeah, she thinks.  Mighty quiet.  And there are all those CRICKETS.  And things.  Yeep.  Okay, this is why I’m getting a dog (she thinks).  So she says aloud:  “Yeah.  I know.  Theoretically.  I’ve never lived in the country.  But it’s why I want a dog.”  Who the [expletive deleted] is this guy? she suddenly gets unparalytic enough to think.  I wish Hayley would get here. 

Cathy: “Dogs aren’t quiet, that’s for sure.  At least, mine isn’t.”  He turns around and hops off the stool (presumably she’s followed him into the kitchen) and offers his hand to shake.  “I’m Ron Driscoll.  I do odd jobs, electrical work, that kind of thing.  I was sorting out some issues with your fuse box.”  She notices, now, that his dark green work shirt has a name tag above the pocket that says “Ron” in yellow script.

Robin: She shakes his hand.  Her heart rate is slowing down to normal.  “Nice to meet you,” she says (inanely.  Feeling inane.  Also feeling like a total asshole.  She TOTALLY believed that was Yog-Sothoth in the cellar :)).  Tries to think of something else to say.  Fails.  Kind of wants to know if he lives in Cold Valley and is available on Sunday mornings when the hot water fails to be hot but feels this might be pushy.  Oh, wait.  You can ask people about their dogs.  “What kind of dog?”

Cathy: “Mine, y’mean?  Hank’s a Malamute.  Big hairy [expletive deleted].”

Cathy: Wait, I’m sorry

Cathy: “Mine, y’mean?  Hank’s a Malamute.  Delightful fluffy companion!”

Cathy: Wait, no.

Robin: ::falls down laughing::

Cathy: “Mine, y’mean?  Hank’s a Malamute.  Good dogs–one person dogs, though, at least he is.”

Robin: Note to self:  Do not drop by Ron’s when he’s not there.

Cathy: “He’s not a barker, but he’ll howl like you wouldn’t believe.  I live just down the road a piece–so if you hear howling, it’s probably Hank.  Coyotes tend to avoid this area.”

Cathy: And then Hayley shows up.  “Hellooooo!  Kes, are you here?”  She comes in the kitchen.  “Oh, hi, Ron!  I see you’ve met Kes.”

Cathy: (As you’ve already established a personality for Hayley that I’ve not read, you’d better take over for her.)

Robin: I haven’t entirely settled on Hayley.  Do you want input?  She’s perky and a bustler is as far as I’ve gotten.  But I haven’t figured out if she’s (a) a potential friend/ally (b) middle aged (c) young (d) settled here in the boonies (e) ambitious/still ambitious to get out (she could also have had a recent life crisis) etc.  We can run on just perky and bustling for the moment if you like.

Robin: She suppresses saying ‘thank the gods you’re here’ and says (still in inane mode), oh, you know each other?  And, um, good about the coyotes.  Thinks:  KY [EXPLETIVE DELETED] YOTES????

Cathy: Ron says, “Hi, Hayley–I was just finishing up some work on the electrical.  I’ll get out of your way so you can show… Kes, was it?  Nice to meet you, Kes… around the place.”  Ron goes out to the hallway, shoulders his ladder and grabs the toolbox, then heads out the front door and down the steps.

Robin: By the way, I think at this point Kes does not know that [EXPLETIVE DELETED] MALAMUTES LOOK A LOT LIKE REAL [EXPLETIVE DELETED] WOLVES.  Just in case you have plans. 

Cathy: this is my vicarious malamute.  DAMN do I want one of those dogs.

Cathy: Hayley tells Kes, “Ron’s the local handyman, he does great work.  I’ll make sure you have his number in case you need anything fixed around the place.”

Robin: “Oh good.  Thanks.” Kes takes a deep breath.  She knows she’s still paralytic and while Ron may just think she’s a moron (which would be too bad, because he’s kind of cute), Hayley had seen her in post-pancakes sugar-high mode and knows she can talk.  “He was in the cellar when I got here, so I didn’t know what was happening.  I just heard something coming up the cellar stairs–he was carrying his ladder and–”  Hayley starts laughing and then tries to stop.  “Oh dear.  I’m so sorry.  It must have been–very alarming.”  “Yes.  You could say that.”  Feelingly.  –At this point Hayley would start doing the official tour, I think.  Do you want to stop here?  You’ve certainly given me enough to go on–I can get two posts out of this, I think.  AND IT’S GOING TO WORK.  YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.  :):):):):):):)

Cathy: Yes, sure, let’s stop here.

 

 

Wolfgang

 

I didn’t make it to abbey practise last night.  I didn’t make it because Wolfgang died spectacularly whilst going 70 mph down the motorway. 

            And the garage didn’t call me back today.  Of course.  I rang twice.  Oh yes, they said.  We’ll ring you back.

            So it was about 7:10 yesterday evening and I had turned the key in the little hole and Wolfgang had instantly sprung to life and therefore I was fine, right?  I thought I was fine.  At least until I turned the key in the little hole again to come home.  I have been thinking that he’s a little more sluggish than he used to be—I thought this particularly yesterday evening as we hit the motorway and I put my foot down, because if the speed limit is 70, I’m going to go 70, and the slow dorks can just stay in the slow lane, thank you very much*—and he’s seventeen years old, he’s not an Olympic sprinter any more, but he can still blast down the motorway, just give him a couple of extra seconds.  It was in the back of my mind that it was taking him a second or two more than usual to make the slow dorks eat our dust.  And we were steaming along a mile or so later when he coughed, the red lights came on on the dashboard, flicked back off again AND THEN CAME ON AND STAYED ON AND THE ENGINE DIED.  DIED.  CUT FRELLING OUT AND DIED, GOING 70 MPH DOWN THE MOTORWAY.

            May I just say that I found this rather alarming.

            So we coasted to a halt.  We were on a long gradual downhill, so I had some choice as to where we landed, and we nosed into one of the little country lanes that have been there for centuries before motorways were invented.  I sat there and trembled for a minute or two, and then, as a matter of interest, turned the key.  Nothing.  Not even the frantic sound of a starter motor failing to connect.  So I got out—the other cars on the motorway parting my hair with their slipstreams as they gonzoed by**—and opened the bonnet, since heat does have some pertinence to these situations.  We hadn’t actually gone far enough for the engine to be warm yet, but you want to feel like you’re doing something, before you cravenly ring the RAC.***  This entirely beside the knowledge that it’ll be two hours before the RAC gets to you.†

            So I propped the bonnet open with my (trembling) hands†† and went and sat in the supposed driver’s seat.†††  This sort of situation makes me feel like a lab animal presented with a set of circumstances utterly alien to its real life while the lab coats sit around and laugh at how stupid it is.‡   So with a lab-critter sensibility I tried the key-in-the-little-hole thing again, like a confused rat pressing a lever that always used to produce a peanut.  This time I got the starter-motor-spinning-wildly-and-not-connecting-with-anything noise.  Hmm.  I got out of the car again and stared at the enigmatic and implacable array under the bonnet.  Checking, I suppose, for gremlin footprints.  No.  The enigma and the implacability are—to the uneducated eye at least—undisturbed.

            Got back in the driver’s [sic] seat.  Listened to Radio 3 for a few more minutes.  (Nothing wrong with the battery.) 

            Turned the key in the little hole again.  It had been about ten minutes since we’d rolled to a halt.

            And the rat was amazed and delighted by the arrival of a peanut.  Wolfgang started. 

            We were already facing in that direction, and this bit of motorway doesn’t have any plausible places to turn around.  I drove the rest of the way to the abbey, thinking, it’s still an erratic fault, whatever the hell it is, I have no idea, I can ring the RAC just as well at 9:15 after practise, they might have less backlog then anyway.  But when I got there my usual car park—which is always half empty at this time of evening on a Wednesday—was bung full.  We paused at the exit and I thought about it.  All the other car parks are significantly farther away.  I decided it was an omen.  I drove home.  Wolfgang behaved impeccably.

            It being nearly midsummer, when it’s twilight at about 10 pm, I spent nearly two hours in the garden, potting up the replacement petunias‡‡, potting on osteospermums who were beginning to stand on the roots poking through the pressed-compost pots, and FINALLY getting my dahlias in their permanent positions.  And, of course, providing additional helpings of mealworms, because if I’m in the garden, there had better be mealworms.      

            I will chase the garage further tomorrow.  But I spoke to Blaze at Warm Upford today‡‡‡ and despite these exciting new developments there’s still no clear, fixable diagnosis.  And . . .  I think I’m probably looking at a new car.  I don’t want a new car.  I can’t afford a new car, I don’t want the frelling hassle, and . . . I want Wolfgang.  But I want a Wolfgang that runs.  Which is beginning to look pretty remote.   Sob. 

* * *

* Unless the ME is biting and I have sufficient need to climb behind the wheel anyway.  In which case I wouldn’t be on the motorway and I would be an amazingly slow dork. 

** 70 mph is remarkably fast, when you’re standing by the side of the road.  Ugh.  I am also very grateful that there wasn’t a lot on the road at that hour of the evening.  The bankers on their way to/from London in their Jags and their Mercs and their BMWs can be a pretty savage crew.  And 70 mph is their idea of a slow dork. 

*** Moments like these I am totally grateful for the invention of the mobile/cell phone.  

† Of course I had my knitting, although I’m not sure I had enough knitting.  I have been paranoid for decades about Having Enough Reading Material in case of being snowed in at an airport for six or thirty-two hours, and it’s one of life’s little ironies that I have about two dozen books on Astarte^ now that I don’t hang out in airports any more.  But . . . do I now have to start worrying about having ENOUGH knitting??  Oh gods.  The fearful predicaments of modern life. 

^ Not all of these are really ideal snowed-in-at-the-airport reading, several being homeopathy or Japanese language lessons, but I think I told you the very first book I bought and downloaded was LOTR.  Followed quickly by a good bit of Kipling and Sherlock Holmes—and the complete M R James and some Lovecraft, which probably aren’t ideal snowed-in-at-the-airport reading either.  Part of this scenario, you understand, is that All Connections Are Lost.  A quick download of That Book You Have Been Absolutely Meaning to Read as Soon as You Had Any Time+ is not an option. 

+ Which of course you bought in hardcover the moment it came out, about two years ago. 

†† And, speaking of wanting to feel like you’re doing something, just for laughs, I checked the oil.  I realise that the oil light comes on as a generic RED ALERT YOUR TRANSPORTATION ACROSS A HOSTILE GALAXY IS EXPIRING but still . . . it’s the first thing on in a crisis (at least on Wolfgang) and it’s the oil light.  —Oil’s fine.  I’m almost sorry.  Oil would at least be a diagnosis.   

††† I also texted Gemma saying, if you’re going to practise, would you please offer my apologies, I am sitting by the side of the road in a dead car.  Bless her, she texted back:  Do you need rescuing?  

‡ here about the lab coat conclusion that horses are STUPID because they’re lousy at food-finding experiments.  OF COURSE THEY’RE LOUSY AT FOOD-FINDING EXPERIMENTS.  THEY EVOLVED TO EAT THE STUFF THEY WALK ON ALL THE TIME>.  

‡‡ About 80% of the original ones began to recover the moment I hit ‘send’ on the replacement order. 

‡‡‡ Leading off with ‘before I take the car to the garage that mended it before the Jubilee weekend and wrap it around their necks’.

KES, 18

 

EIGHTEEN

“Dogs aren’t quiet, that’s for sure.  At least, mine isn’t.”  The dwarf finished washing his hands, dried them on the dingy-looking towel, turned around and hopped off the stool.  When he took a step back toward me I managed not to cringe this time.  He offered his hand to shake.  “I’m Ron Driscoll.  I do odd jobs, electrical work, that kind of thing.  I was sorting out some issues with your fuse box.”

            I finally noticed that his dark green work shirt had a name tag above the pocket that said “Ron” in yellow script.  I needed to work on this noticing thing.

            I shook his hand.  It was a big rough hand, the kind of hand that would belong to someone who did odd jobs.  So maybe he really had been sorting out my fuse box—damn it, the fuse box—and wasn’t in the pay of the Great Old Ones to do unspeakable things in the dark cellars of abandoned houses.  My heart rate was slowing down to normal.  “Nice to meet you,” I said, feeling inane.  And like a verifiable moron.  I had totally believed that was Yog-Sothoth in the cellar.  I tried to think of something else to say.  Failed.  Forgot I hadn’t given him my name because I got distracted wondering if he lived in Cold Valley and was available on Sunday mornings when the hot water was failing to be hot, but felt asking this might be pushy. 

            Oh, wait.  You can ask people about their dogs.  “What kind of dog?”

            “Mine, y’mean?  Hank’s a Malamute.  Good dogs—one person dogs, though, at least he is.”

            Note to self:  Do not drop by Ron’s when he’s not there.

            “He’s not a barker, but he’ll howl like you wouldn’t believe.  I live just down the road a piece—so if you hear howling, it’s probably Hank.  Coyotes tend to avoid this area.”

            COYOTES?

            And then Hayley showed up.  Finally.  The front door banged and then there was the unmistakable sound of a woman looking forward to spending her old age in a wheelchair walking quickly in four-inch heels:  clicketyclicketyclicketyclickety.  “Helloooo!  Kes, are you here?”  Hayley appeared in the kitchen door.  “Oh, hi, Ron!  I see you’ve met Kes.”

            I suppressed the “thank the gods you’re here” that was trying to fly out of my mouth.  She’s twenty years old!  She wears four-inch heels!  She’s trying to rent me a house only slightly smaller than Grand Central Station!  With Yog-Sothoth in the cellar!  “Oh, you know each other?”  She and Ron are in it together!  Whatever it is!  “And, um, good about the coyotes.”  I glanced at Ron, hoping maybe he was kidding.  But he was giving me that impenetrable, measuring look again, like maybe I’m a load of shingles he suspects are substandard.  I wondered if coyotes ate rose-bushes.

            “Hi, Hayley,” Ron said.  “I was just finishing up some work on the electrical.  I’ll get out of your way so you can show . . . Kes, was it?  Nice to meet you, Kes . . . around.”  He shouldered his ladder, grabbed his toolbox, then headed down the hall to the front door.  We heard it open and thud shut behind him.

            Oh, hell’s false teeth.  I hadn’t introduced myself.  No wonder he’d been glaring at me.

            “Ron’s the local handyman, he does great work,” Hayley said.  “I’ll make sure you have his number in case you need anything fixed around the place.”

            “Oh good.  Thanks.”  I took a deep breath. 

            Hayley looked at me, looked away—and then looked back.  Her eyes didn’t slide away.  “Kes?” she said tentatively.  “Are you okay?  You look a little—pale.”

             I knew I was still semi-paralytic at least in terms of coherent speech and while Ron might just think I was a moron (which would be too bad, because he was kind of cute:  I liked the little streaks of grey in his hair), Hayley had seen me in my post-pancakes sugar high and knew I could talk.  I took a deep breath.  “Ron was in the cellar when I got here, so I didn’t know what was happening.  I just heard something coming up the cellar stairs—he was carrying his ladder and —”

             Hayley started laughing and then couldn’t stop.  I started to grin involuntarily.  She was laughing at me, but it wasn’t unfriendly.  And it made her look like a human being rather than a cheerleader in four-inch heels and a navy-blue blazer.  “Oh dear,” she said at last, blushing through her face powder again.  “I’m so sorry.  It’s just—I’m—um.”  She took a deep breath and reverted to professionally crisp.  “It must have been—very alarming.”

            “Yes.  You could say that.”  Feelingly.  I looked at her.  She was still blushing, but her eyes were sliding away from mine again.  What was with this babe?  I liked her better laughing.  She stood there, as stiffly upright as one of the chairs in the parlour, clutching her (rather large) handbag like an enchanted sword.  Maybe it was an enchanted enchanted sword.  Hmm.  Flowerhair hadn’t been cursed to be a realtor yet.  It could happen.

 

Swatch City

 

So.  I’ve been knitting.*  And I think I figured out why the second swatch on the mere one-size-up needles was so spectacularly larger . . . big duuuuh moment coming here . . . different kind of needles.  I will stand in a corner with a pointy hat on my head . . . which is fine so long as I can take my knitting with me, I don’t care . . . but the bigger needles are bamboo, and the original too-small swatch was on rosewood.  I hadn’t thought beyond ‘wooden needles’—I don’t like metal, I have one pair which I have used once and then hastily bought bamboo in that size.**  Most of my needles are bamboo (because they’re cheap) but I have two or three pairs of rosewood (which are not cheap) which are my favourite.  And since I mostly knit on my rosewoods I don’t really think about it.***   I still wouldn’t have thought about it except that as I unconsciously adjusted to the bamboo the swatch began growing sort of wedge shaped.  SO I TORE IT OUT AND STARTED OVER.†

First swatch, having been washed and dried. Curly edges optional. (I knitted a few rows before I started ribbing, to see how that would look. No comments please.)

Second second swatch. On big fat bamboo needles. And no funny business with the bottom edge.

          The new one looks pretty good except for the little problem that it’s still three rows short in the photo and it’s supposed to be a square. ††  However blondviolinist tells me that while stitch gauge is critical†††, row gauge probably isn’t so much unless I’m trying to do (say) colour work.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Okay.  We’ll settle for stitch gauge. 

            Meanwhile . . . I had fallen madly in love with the Rowan Summer Tweed colours and when I saw RST on sale I bought some of the gorgeous dark-burnt-orange which fails to rejoice in the name Torrid‡.  But it’s cotton/silk which means unstretchy, and I thought I’d better knit a swatch before I did anything else, in case I hated it or it hated me, especially after I’d looked up Rowan Summer Tweed on Ravelry and while almost everyone liked what they made almost everyone also hated the yarn.  Oh dear.

            I like it.  I like knowing where you are with something that isn’t stretchy.  And I got (stitch) gauge dead on first time.‡‡

That's Kes' stool it's lying on, by the way. Ahem.

       So then I bought the golden-yellow.‡‡‡  And I’m stopping now.

I took about ten photos with different backgrounds trying to get the COLOUR right. It’s slightly yellower than this, but it is a golden yellow, not a lemon yellow.

* * *

* I was having an exchange with a nice friendly On Line Yarn Proprietor in which I mentioned that I’d finally FINISHED a first project—in this case, legwarmers^—and this had been such a major morale boost that at the moment I’m crazy to get on.  And she wrote back, oh yes, isn’t it great when knitting takes over like that.  —Hmmmmmmmm.

^ And the second pair is coming on. 

Long. Green. Leg warming. And rosewood needles.

Yes, there will be a third pair.  I like leg warmers.  I also like knitting something I can finish.  And then use.  I also like little projects+ that fit in my knapsack++ and that only take a skein or two of yarn so you can buy something on whim that isn’t taking chicken out of hellhounds’ mouths.+++   Although if the first pair of leg warmers fall apart the first time they go through the wash I will fall into a decline.  

+ Since I have this inexplicable aversion to socks 

++ The First Cardi swatches, on 14” needles, do not fit in my small going-bell-ringing knapsack.  They stick out the top, causing unseemly hilarity among the male members of the assembled.  Anthea, not missing a beat, said, What you need is a new bag.  —Why . . . of course.  Why hadn’t I thought of that?

            Denise was also there last night.  She says that multiple attempts have been made to teach her to knit and they have all failed.  Why? I said nervously.  And she started talking about variable tension. . . .  

 +++ Ha ha frelling ha.  Chaos is having another of his inexplicable aversions to food.  Maybe I should teach him to knit.  Socks.  

** I also have two pairs in Vintage Pink Plastic^ that I haven’t quite got round to using yet, I’m afraid of spoiling the vision by finding out they’re no fun to knit with. 

^ Bought for about $1.19 on Etsy.  As I recall the postage from the States cost more than they did. 

*** In hindsight I am now wondering if shifting from bamboo to rosewood and back may have anything to do with the variability of all those squares I knitted last year, and am, in fact, still knitting, in a slower, slightly dazed way.  Because I always had/have several going at a time so there is always one at hand and most of them are still around for emergencies.  Like when you’re waiting for your watering can to fill.^  Or you didn’t bring your proper knitting to bed with you and you can’t sleep, but it’s cold out there and there are lions^^ and you don’t want to get out of bed to fetch it. 

^ It’s a long story.  Yes, I also have a half-barrel that I keep full and two water butts that the rain keeps full. 

^^ There are always lions, after you’ve gone to bed and turned the light out. 

†  Arrrrrrrgh, continued.  When your so-called friends are busy trying to drag you onto the knitting wagon there is an awful lot they don’t tell you.  The one  unexpected break I got here is that—perhaps because it hadn’t been a swatch for very long—crimping was minimal.  I rolled it up loosely around the original soft ball and it was knittable by the next day.   

†† Speaking of variable tension.  

††† Except of course that gauge/tension lies, as EMoon on the forum pointed out that Yarn Harlot points out.  Okay.  Fine.  Whatever.  If First Cardi is too big, Wolfgang can have it.  If it’s too small, Chaos can have it (he’s the one who feels the cold.  Possibly because he’s the even worse eater.)^ 

^ Also there’s a madman on Twitter who thinks I’m going to knit him a sweater.  If it’s too small for Wolfgang and too big for Chaos—and too lumpy for me—he can have it. 

‡ What overcooked advertising meatloaf decreed that individual colourways within a brand or a category, like ‘Rowan Summer Tweed’, should have individual names?  Not all do—some sensible wool manufacturers name the yarn, and merely have numbers for subsidiary colours.  But many do.^  They should be made to stand in corners wearing pointy hats and not be allowed their knitting. 

^ Rowan is unusually bad about this.  Summer Tweed also unrejoices in ‘Tonic’, ‘Swirl’, and ‘Smoulder’.  But their best yet may be Rowan Purelife Renew+ which is all named after stuff about vehicles.  Camper.  Lorry.  Trailer.  Tractor.  Garage.  Garage?  You’re going to want to knit something with a name like Garage?  —Although I quite fancy a couple of skeins of Mini for legwarmers.    

+ Gag.  Sic. 

‡‡ I don’t know what the hell is up with my row gauge.  But I’ll worry about that later. 

‡‡‡ Called Butterball.  Well, Rowan is English, and perhaps only an American thinks instantly of turkeys. . . .

 

Guest post by Peter Dickinson: LEGENDS OF ST THICK*

 

This year we celebrate the centenary of the Blessed St Thick. We might as well, because the exact year of the saint’s birth is not known. He himself could never tell how old he was, being unable to count beyond four. (His thumb confused him.) Because ordinary people found it easier to identify with St Thick than with other men of great holiness and learning, many legends are told of him. Here are a few.

St Thick and the Devil

One evening the Devil came to St Thick and offered to make him clever. St Thick was sorely tempted, but he had been cheated so often by men taking advantage of his simplicity that he at last learnt a thing or two.

‘What’s in it for you?’ he asked.

‘Just my usual fee,’ said the Devil. ‘Sign here.’

And he produced a pen and a bottle of special ink, stronger than dragon’s blood, made from the brimstone cinders of the pit.

‘I cannot write my name,’ said St Thick.

‘Then make your mark,’ said the Devil. ‘That will do.’

St Thick dipped the pen in the ink, but not being used to pens he dropped a great blot on the document, just where the words were written signing his soul away.

‘Fool,’ said the Devil. ‘I’ll have to write it all again.’

To cover his embarrassment the saint looked around for something to drink. Seeing the ink-bottle he picked it up and swallowed the contents, the Lord miraculously hardening his gullet for the purpose. By this time the Devil was in such a rage that St Thick thought he had better make his mark to pacify him, so he picked up the pen and with the last ink on it made the only mark he knew. Not a x but a +. This caused the Devil to disappear in a puff of sulphur.

‘That was good strong liquor,’ said the saint.

 

St Thick Saves Rome

Attila the Hun was on his way to sack Rome when he met St Thick, praying by the wayside. St Thick was only on his way to the next village, but he had forgotten the road and was praying for guidance. Seeing a harmless stranger, Attila the Hun, as was his custom, lifted up his great club and smote the saint on the skull, intending to bash his brains out. But such was the marvellous thickness of the saint’s cranium that the club splintered into a hundred pieces. Deeply impressed, Attila the Hun ordered the saint to guide him to Rome, but St Thick had a slight ringing in the ears after the blow and thought he was asking to be taken to the saint’s home.

Now, as it happened the saint had just set up home in a commodious cave, unaware that a large and savage bear was hibernating there. He ushered Attila the Hun into the cave just as the bear woke up and came lumbering out, looking for a good meal. That was the end of Attila the Hun, and so the Holy City of Rome was saved from sack by the miraculous stupidity of St Thick.

 

St Thick Discovers America

The Pope decreed that the lack of learning of certain holy men was a scandal to the Church, and to set an example he commissioned a hundred learned scholars to teach St Thick the rudiments of the Faith. They taught him for a year and a day, working in shifts, and at the end of that time he was not a comma wiser. So the Pope, to remove the scandal, told St Thick to go and convert the heathen. Obediently St Thick went down to the shore and found two short planks, which he lashed together and made a raft. The wind blew him from shore, and he was lost to sight.

A year and a day later he returned, saying that he had sailed to a great land, where the people had copper skins and wore great feathered head-dresses and signalled to each other with smoke and a lot of other absurd and incredible stories.

‘But did you convert them to the Faith?’ said the Pope.

‘I taught them everything I knew,’ said St Thick.

‘That won’t have taken long,’ said the Pope, in his scornful pride.

But it is well to remember that St Thick had discovered America, which was more than that Pope could say for himself.

 

St Thick and St Thomas

St Thomas Aquinas, as everyone knows, was the wisest man ever. No knowledge in all the world was beyond him, or so he thought. In the pride of his great learning he set out to search the world and see if there was anything he did not know. He travelled through all the lands of Christendom and found nothing, so he started for home. On the last night of his long journey he put up at an inn and by chance he found St Thick, who had gone there hearing the singing and mistaking it for a place of worship. The saints fell into conversation. All night St Thomas studied the different facets of the ignorance of St Thick, and as the sun rose he fell on his knees and said, ‘I have been saved from a great sin. I thought I knew all that could be known, but I do not know how it is possible for a man to be so stupid as this holy brother.’ And he blessed St Thick and bought him a pint of wine and went humbly home.

 

St Thick and St Peter

 When St Thick died and came to the gates of Heaven, he stood and stared at the infinite jewelled walls and the glittering pinnacles and all the holy spirits like different coloured flames moving among them. He fell on his knees, ashamed of his stupidity, and let the other dead souls crowd by. As he knelt there his eye fell on a pebble — nothing but a pebble, fallen from the shoe of some pilgrim. He picked it up and began to turn it over in his palm.

Evening came, and St Peter was about to shut the gate, when he saw the old man kneeling in the dust, gazing at something in his hand.

‘What have you there, friend?’ said St Peter. ‘And aren’t you coming in?’

‘Oh, it’s just a pebble I picked up. An amazing thing is a pebble.’

‘We have wonders much greater than that to show you inside,’ said St Peter. ‘You must be very easily amazed.’

‘Oh yes, I am,’ said St Thick. ‘I think, sir, the wonders of heaven might be too much for me. I am better off with my pebble, wondering at the roundness of it, and the greyness of it, and the hardness of it, and that it should exist at all.’

‘No doubt it was put there for you to find and think about,’ said St Peter. ‘My brother, you know something that the wisest of men do not always know. Come in. You will not be ashamed.’

So St Thick went through the gates, and the angels sang for him and he understood their song, and his pebble was set in the midmost point of the Throne, where a space had lain waiting for it since before time was. 

 * * *

* Peter edited a book called HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS almost thirty years ago, in honour of the 100th anniversary of the NSPCC:  National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and all proceeds went to the NSPCC.  It’s a lovely collection, it has almost every British children’s writer of that era in it (the very last story is by Diana Wynne Jones), but it’s been out of print for a long time.  This is Peter’s contribution, and he said I could use it on the blog.

More KES related

 

EMoon

SO enjoying New Thing, and the discussions about it. 

Oh good.  ::Beams::  We don’t always aim to please* but in the case of KES we are aiming at pleasingness with all the force and ferocity we can muster.**  And in the interests of making discussion a little easier and more wieldy, Blogmom has created a new discussion forum, which appears directly under the blog post discussion in the forum list:  Discussion of KES.  All being well, the KES thread in the blog post forum will be closed and moved to head up the new KES forum.  And I’ll start a new thread every week or so—or every fortnight—we’ll see how it goes.  The point is so the thread doesn’t get so long you can’t move around.  Or, in my case, it frelling loads so frelling slowly I could knit half a cardigan while I waited.*** 

Katsheare

I woke up in the middle of the night really, REALLY worried that it was the Silent Wonder Dog coming up the stairs, and that we were spoiling the story. 

Well you now know it was not the Silent Wonder Dog coming up the stairs.  But in general . . . unless it amuses you to worry . . . don’t worry.  You will guess what I’m up to † some time because I’m not going for originality, just entertaining spin.  But no one is holding a gun to anyone’s head to read the forum.  People who don’t like speculation can either not read the forum or read it with some lead time built in.††  Also, I’m trying to stay about ten eps ahead in the writing so you’re not likely to have immediate impact.  And anyone who can guess ten eps ahead what I’m up to . . . is a professional psychic and is cheating by messing with my forum, and you should be ashamed of yourself, whoever you are. 

                And on the subject of the Silent Wonder Dog Cathy (Black Bear) posted this link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounds_of_Tindalos

. . . and I fell down laughing because I had forgotten ‘they are lean and athirst!’ which is one of the great lines of English literature.†††  Very embarrassing to have forgotten.  And I call myself a Lovecraftian.  Or rather, no, I don’t.  I had a pretty intense Lovecraft phase in my teens, but while it’s, one might say, gruesomely easy to make fun of him, if you let yourself slide into his world it is pretty frelling creepy, and I used to try to forget what I’d read as soon as possible.  This does beg the question why I was reading him in the first place but hey.‡   And he certainly left marks on my psyche—both the how to do it kind and the how NOT to do it kind.  But he had the keeping you reading when you know you don’t want to ability, and I admire that.

            Clearly Kes has to do some time travelling.   Hmm.   I have an idea. . .

Katinseattle

The dwarf had narrowed his large black curly-lashed eyes thoughtfully while I was talking and seemed to be giving me some kind of careful once-over. This did not add to my sense of security and having-a-clue-ness. “Well, you’ll do, I expect,” he said

…What? Do what? . . . 

Which is the question.  I only know slightly more than you do.  This is Cathy’s problem. 

 * * *

* We’re a hellgoddess!  We aim to annoy and terrify! 

** Pity about the slightly bent shafts and the temperamental crosswind.  And the sun is in our eyes and there’s a hellhound making playful leaps at the arrow we are trying to nock in the string.  And one of the target’s legs is cracked, and it’s slowly subsiding in that direction, and the paint’s peeling and the straw is coming loose and we think it’s going to rain, and . . .   An author’s life is difficult, okay? 

*** Speaking of threads.  So I knitted a gauge/tension swatch for First Cardigan, and it came out six and a half inches instead of eight.  Okay, I said brightly, that’s fine, I’ll just go up a needle size, the pattern even tells you you may have to do this, no big.  So I started knitting a new swatch^ on 6.5 mm needles instead of 6 mm needles . . . AND IT’S NINE INCHES.  NINE.^^  Arrrrrrrrgh.  So I’ve ripped out the six-and-a-half inch swatch AND I’M GOING TO DO IT AGAIN ON THE ORIGINAL FRELLING SIX MILLIMETRE NEEDLES, singsonging to myself, relax, knit loosely, take it easy, tra la la la la la.  That’ll work.  Yes.  That will certainly work.  ARRRRRRRGH.

            Note that I rolled the ripped-out swatch into a ball to try and flatten out the crimps^^^ but Fiona said I’d probably have to wet it, so I soaked the freller and . . . having rolled it fairly tightly . . . it’s refusing to dry out again.  I don’t WANT to UNROLL it so it’ll dry and then ROLL IT UP AGAIN.  Rolling is boring. 

             You know there’s a lot about this knitting scam that they don’t tell you.  

^ Looking with alarm, I might add, at how much yarn a mere swatch takes up and wondering if I should have bought an extra fifty skeins.  Or sixty. 

^^ Nine inches does not please this lady.  ::Hums innocently:: 

http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiNINEINCH;ttNINEINCH.html +

So, should I learn this one? 

+ Warning:  This is Robbie Burns at his rudest.  If it’s going to bother you, don’t click the link.  Although if you like traditional folk and Robert Burns you’ve very likely heard it in the original Scottish and didn’t realise how rude it is.  I’ve got it on an old LP of classical folk—Beethoven and Haydn and so on.  When I finally looked the lyrics up—having figured out what the ‘nine inches’ part must be about—it was a trifle unexpected.  

^^^ You don’t realise how much knitting there is in knitting, if you follow me, till you rip some of it out.  Golly.  All those painstaking little loops. 

† And Cathy.  Cathy is responsible for the noise coming up the stairs and the bloke now washing his hands in the kitchen sink.  I’ll tell you more after the next ep goes up and that scene ends.  But I told you I’d tell you when Cathy first appears.  FINALLY.  CATHY HAS APPEARED.  Sorry.  I didn’t realise how much narrative trouble I could get into just moving someone from the wilds of Manhattan to the wilds of the back of beyond. 

†† Oh!  That’s a pun!  

††† ‘They are lean and athirst!’ he shrieked.  —If you want to be precise about it.

 ‡ And I flatly don’t read modern horror.  Way too graphic.  I don’t want to hear about the body parts.  SUNSHINE is not horror.  Makes me crazy when I hear that it’s been shelved in horror.  I wrote SUNSHINE for the throwback DRACULA crowd, like me, who want to be creeped out, not grossed out^ and who will never find it in horror.  It’s the darker end of fantasy.  IT IS NOT HORROR.   

^ I make an exception for the first two BLADE movies, which I adore, but that has more to do with Wesley Snipes (and Kris Kristofferson).   And I blink a lot.  The great thing about rewatching something is knowing when to blink.