tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34836958691186050672024-03-13T16:08:29.630+00:00Notes from the Slow LaneThe Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.comBlogger311125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-85940761462060375982016-01-31T19:30:00.000+00:002016-01-31T19:30:39.867+00:00January in the gardenNo garden looks its best in January and the garden is squelchy all over from the endless rain. Nonetheless there are some bright points, some from the unseasonable warmth, such as the daffodils I planted at the bottom of the garden where they would be seen every time I went past the back door. There is something rather wonderful about planning something unseen, under the ground, thinking ahead to what it will be in months to come. Arranging bulbs in little holes in the ground, thinking out how they will look, plotting beauty. Last year, without bulbs, was dismal, I missed the concentrated sunshine glow of daffodils, harbingers of warmth to come. There is something so cheering in the bulbs and the way they brighten up late winter.<br />
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In the bed outside the kitchen window I have begun to put plants that offer some winter colour, cyclamen, dogwood and hellebore, again to have something to look out at in winter. The dogwood came from Buckingham nurseries, who sell good quality plants at superb prices, and it has settled right in, working away putting out fresh shoots. I'd like to put some holly nearby, how anyone can have a garden without holly is beyond me, my previous homes have always had holly and ivy and birds find it such good shelter and a source of food.<br />
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(not the world's greatest photograph)<br />
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My other big garden excitement is a compost bin. Never did I think I would get so excited by compost! Shortly after Christmas my dad arrived at the door with a mystery piece of plastic - which turned out to be the hatch cover for the compost bin and an early birthday present. He completed the present with a bagful of his compost, complete with worms, to get me started.<br />
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Hopefully there will be more to show next month and hopefully I can keep up giving updates on the garden. I think, I hope, I will become a gardener, being outside, absorbed in a task, is so good for my mental well-being, even if I can only do it for five, ten or at most twenty minutes at a time.The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-551524133566641012016-01-18T13:10:00.002+00:002016-01-18T13:10:24.057+00:00A bad year for bloggingIt cannot be denied that as far as I am concerned 2015 was a bad year for blogging. The completeness of the change brought about by moving house has got me out of the habit of blogging. Let us hope that 2016 is different, now I have had this house a year and had another birthday, both of which feel like little landmarks. If last year was about moving out and getting the house set up, what is this year for?<div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">My strepocarpus, I am developing a love of houseplants</span></div>
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So far not a lot, as I'm finishing my second virus since Christmas, though I have got a lot of knitting done while glued to the sofa by fatigue. Last week I finished a baby dress in a yarn that just suited the pattern and hopefully when I have sewn the second button on I will get around to showing it off. In the past day or so I have started on some socks for a cousin; as my sock drawer is rather full I have been concentrating on knitting socks for other people. Am I alone in finding it hard to stop knitting socks? If I do not have any on the needles I can get a deep longing to knit a sock. Still, there are worse addictions, right?</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">A recent picture of Willow</span></div>
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I think I will start keeping a blogging ideas notebook so that when I have ideas I don't forget them again. This year I would like to do something each month on the garden, even showing the weeds and failures. No point pretending to be better than I am. Gardening has been so good for me mentally and physically and it provides a safe calming thing to think about when I am anxious. There will hopefully be more on books, faith, knitting and other making.</div>
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Here goes, fingers crossed.</div>
The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-92128529136540799772015-07-29T17:07:00.002+01:002015-07-29T17:08:02.088+01:00Blankets in JulyJuly is not the most usual month to make good progress on blankets, but this has not been the most usual July. There have been days when being under my<a href="http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/ripple-blanket-know-how.html"> ripple blanket</a> has been lovely. Having started it last September I have now reached the half way stage, so I am not the world's fastest crocheter. Though I am getting better, I can crochet for longer without my arm and hand hurting now which is an improvement. I cannot wait until it is finished and I suspect neither can Willow, she has been sitting on it whenever she gets a chance and she joined me for the half way through photos.<br />
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But not content with one blanket I am making a start on a second blanket, this time in <a href="http://www.woolwarehouse.co.uk/yarn/drops-paris-all-colours">Drops Paris</a> cotton, bought in the Drops cotton sale (ends on Friday!), using the<a href="http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2008/11/hexagon-crochet.html"> Hexagon pattern</a> from Attic 24. I have gone all out brightly coloured for this one so may need sunglasses to look at it when it is finished. Again I am prepared for this to be a long term project, but when it is I should have summer and winter blankets for my bed. Of course, now I have blankets on the brain there are plenty more I would like to make like <a href="http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/vivid-2">Vivid</a> from TinCanKnits and a giant multi-coloured granny square blanket for the sofa. Think I'm going to be busy for a while yet!<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/19750444270/in/dateposted/" title="P1040723"><img alt="P1040723" height="480" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/562/19750444270_70c7f2a41a_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-22180095590395385582015-07-13T17:28:00.000+01:002015-07-13T17:28:37.247+01:00The Year in Books: JuneAs you can probably tell, I have got thoroughly out of the habit of blogging, not helped by a cat who objects to me spending too much time at the computer and shows her displeasure by attacking furniture and sitting on the keyboard! However, I have snuck on here while she is asleep upstairs, as I have missed June's year in books I will start there. Then maybe I will get around to writing about some of the other things I have been doing? Depends on how long Willow the cat sleeps.<br />
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So, June's book was <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/157">Dear Daddy Long Legs</a> by Jean Webster, strictly speaking a children's novel, but a sheer delight. Published in 1912 it concerns an orphan, Jerusha Abbot, who is sent to college by an eccentric, anonymous benefactor, whose only stipulation is that she write to him each month an account of what she has been doing. Accordingly it is an epistolary novel, very fresh despite its age, allowing the enthusiasm of its narrator to shine through. Through her letters we learn about her friends, lessons, sports, dances and sheer delight in the opportunities of the world outside the orphanage in which she has grown up. The narrowness of her previous experience means that she has something of an outsider's perspective on her new world, everything from the books she reads to going into a private house for the first time are new, interesting experiences and that comes through in her letters. I devoured this novel and read a good part of it in the dentist's waiting room, where it proved an excellent diversion. (The dentist's waiting room is a great test of a book in my experience). Go read it, go on, what are you waiting for?The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-3320052199248238522015-05-30T13:25:00.002+01:002015-05-30T13:25:35.727+01:00The Year in Books: MayThis month we have a book on a slightly different topic, <a href="http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?an=asa+briggs&sts=t&tn=toynbee+hall">Toynbee Hall: The First Hundred Years by Asa Briggs and Anne Macartney</a>. For years I have seen references in various books to the settlement movement or university settlements, without truly understanding what they meant, so I went looking, which led me to Toynbee Hall and this book.<br />
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Toynbee Hall, in the east end of London, was established in 1884, named after an Oxford historian who had died the previous year. In the 1880s there was a movement to address the poverty and appalling living conditions of many in the great cities. Rev. Samuel Barnett, Toynbee Hall's founder had moved from a church in Mayfair to St Jude's, a derelict church in the east end in 1872 and it was here that Barnett and his wife Henrietta became drawn into community action. The great idea of Toynbee Hall and the university settlement movement was to bring young undergraduates into the poorest communities to learn what life there was truly like, as a catalyst to change and to run schemes for education, welfare, better housing and even in time union organisation.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Samuel and Henrietta Barnett, painted by Hubert von Herkomer </td></tr>
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Barnett seems to have been determined to see his faith lead to practical action, he wished the people who came to the east end "to settle, that is, to learn as much as to teach, to receive as much as to give". He wanted those making social policy to have knowledge of the problems faced by the people they were trying to help and his work had a huge impact. Among people and projects he influenced were Cosmo Lang, later Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Booth, who mapped London's poverty, future prime minister Asquith and William Beveridge, author of the eponymous report that led to the foundation of the NHS and welfare state. Moreover for some men and women involvement in Toynbee Hall led to considerable social and educational advancement, the first scholarships for pupil teachers to go to Oxford or Cambridge were established in 1892. While some involved in Toynbee Hall did very well such as J M Dent, bookbinder who became a publisher and established the Everyman series and Thomas Okey, a basket maker, who became first Professor of Italian at Cambridge.<br />
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I am not far through the book but already I find the breadth of the aims and vision of Toynbee Hall inspiring and slightly breath-taking. Their work has a lot of relevance for today; sadly the problems they were tackling are still with us and getting worse, especially economic inequality. It also makes me sad that these men and women fought so hard to get decent housing, health care etc. for all and we are now watching their work being dismantled or crippled by lack of funding. So I would recommend this book as very readable and would commend it to any publisher who would consider republishing it. Let us follow in their footsteps.<br />
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You can see the other entries for The Year in Books <a href="http://circleofpinetrees.com/year-books-2015/">here</a><br />
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The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-74041256485201284582015-05-14T13:48:00.000+01:002015-05-14T13:48:32.566+01:00Where next?If I am honest I put too much hope in the election result, in a change of government, in a change of culture and approach. The exit poll and subsequent results have knocked me flat: I am honestly not sure how I am going to cope with another five years of Conservative government. Another five years of being described as a "scrounger" and a "shirker", another five years of the poorest in society suffering the most, another five years of fear and blame and divide and rule.<br />
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It is not that I hate the Conservatives <i>per se</i>, or that I hate Conservative voters. I do hate the campaign they ran, filled with fear, fear of the Scots, fear of the economy, fear that if you do not grasp all you have you may lose it. I hate the idea that all that matters is you, you and your hard working family, nothing else matters. I hate the idea that the poor deserve poverty, that it is a matter of personal responsibility, if only people tried harder they would not be poor. This is blatantly untrue: it ignores all the structures that keep people poor.<br />
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I am filled with dread of what £12 billion of welfare cuts are going to mean to my community, to the disabled, none of whom chose their circumstances, what is going to happen? How are we to live? What is it going to mean for the increasing numbers of children growing up in poverty?<br />
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There is so much that concerns me, scares me, angers me, I feel so passionately about what is happening. But, but, I am ill, I am exhausted, the anger and anxiety make me more exhausted and sore and ill. How can I make a change? How can I get involved and fight and campaign? To be sure, if I were well, I would be out there, doing everything I could to make a difference. Instead I feel like my arms are tied behind my back, my feet tied together and my mouth gagged: I feel silenced and made invisible by my illness.<br />
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So where next? I am at a loss. I am trying to keep an eternal perspective, trying to pray, trying to find hope in God, but the present feels so overwhelming. <br />
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I may head back to the Psalms, it feels like a time for lament.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/174591596&color=ff5500" width="100%"></iframe>The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-33287888977253128252015-04-30T11:40:00.001+01:002015-04-30T11:40:26.030+01:00The Year in Books: AprilFinally I am up to date - just about! This month's book is another I have listened to while knitting, <a href="http://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Classics/Doctor-Thorne-Audiobook/B004FTIGO4/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1430389642&sr=1-1">Doctor Thorne</a> by Anthony Trollope, superbly read by Timothy West. Set in the fictional West of England county of Barsetshire, it evokes a different world, where the values and social rules were quite different to those of today. Principally the book concerns the question of whether it is right to marry for money or whether it is better for an upper class young man to take up a profession to support himself. Over the course of the novel it does become clear what Trollope's own views are through the language he uses, writing of the young hero, Frank Gresham, "selling himself" to save the family estate.<br />
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As with many Victorian novels it is a slow affair and gently meanders through the story, which becomes part of its charm. Despite this I did become utterly caught up in the story and ended up spending most of a whole day listening towards the end. Trollope's characters are very real people, unlike the caricatures who people Dickens' novels (at least in my view) and he is keen to explain their motivations and that no one is entirely bad and no one entirely good. In particular this novel (and others of his I have read) are peopled with strong female characters who are often the ones taking action while their menfolk vacillate. I am particularly fond of the wealthy heiress Miss Dunstable, who cares little what people think and is as far as she can be her own woman, lively, funny and caring. Without getting too Freudian it seems that Trollope's mother, a strong, lively woman who wrote novels and supported her family, had a big impact on his view of women.<br />
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I would heartily recommend the <i>Barchester Chronicles</i> - <i>Doctor Thorne</i> is the third in the series - to anyone interested in human life and wanting to escape to a different world while reading something well written. However, should you be put off by the thought of audio books more than 20 hours long, or books of 544 pages (and I do not blame you in the least) the BBC made a superb dramatisation of all the <a href="http://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Arts-Entertainment/The-Complete-Barchester-Chronicles-Dramatisation-Audiobook/B004FUCAV8/ref=a_search_c4_1_2_srTtl?qid=1430389807&sr=1-2">Barchester Chronicles</a> which is well worth a listen. Audio books from Audible are, incidentally, far cheaper if bought using their credits system. In the meantime I am making a start on the fourth novel in the series, <i>Framley Parsonage</i>.<br />
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You can see the other posts in this month's Year in Books <a href="http://circleofpinetrees.com/year-books-april-2015/">here</a>.The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-83232210992898757722015-04-30T11:13:00.000+01:002015-04-30T11:41:09.229+01:00The Year in Books: March catch upAs I have not yet decided on April's book yet I thought I would write about March's book (well, books) first, maybe <a href="http://circleofpinetrees.com/year-books-april-2015/">something someone else has written about </a>will inspire me? My March choice is Nella Last's diaries, published (so far) as Nella Last's War, Nella Last's Peace and Nella Last in the 1950s, which I have been listening to as audio books. Nella Last was a housewife from Barrow in Furness, married to Will who ran a joinery and shop fitting business, who wrote for <a href="http://www.massobs.org.uk/index.htm">Mass Observation</a> from 1939 until a year or two before her death in 1968. Her diary is the longest and most complete record in Mass Observation at around 12 million words and covers every aspect of her life - her marriage, her sons, Arthur and Cliff, her neighbours, friends, relations, voluntary work, housework, politics, news, her love of the Lakes and many other subjects.<br />
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The first volume, dealing with the war, was of great historical interest and provided a clear picture of day to day life in wartime, the hardships, losses, absences and bombs (Barrow suffered as badly in the Blitz as London) but above all the emotional state of ordinary men and women through the war. Nella's diaries allow us to see behind the positive images of wartime propaganda to the petty arguments between tired, emotionally strained women, the fear that was so pervasive and to the huge efforts people went to in order to persevere and overcome. In many ways the war was a better time for Nella than the years beforehand, when she had had mental breakdowns in part caused by her husband, who wanted her to be at home alone with him all the time and whose own mental health was none too good. During the war she had definite reasons for being out of the house and meeting people, volunteering with the Red Cross, the WVS and for the local hospital. Notable among her war work was running a very successful Red Cross charity shop to raise money to send Red Cross parcels to POWs. In the post war years she and other women she knew desperately missed these activities and she frequently comments on how she could feel the four walls of her house closing in on her and wonders how she is going to occupy herself.</div>
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As I have already mentioned, Nella's husband was not an easy man and she is frank about her marriage, her fears and frustrations. Neither enjoyed particularly good health, from Nella's descriptions of her physical health I began to suspect that today she would probably have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, but while Nella's response was to try to keep going and be involved in the world, her husband's was quite the opposite. This created an enormous tension between them, however, Nella does not indulge in self pity and there is nothing maudlin about the diaries. She was a woman of a great many interests, quite apart from her writing, and I particularly enjoyed hearing about the dolls and toys she made to sell for charity; her skill at sewing must have been quite something. The diaries are also punctuated with details of her housekeeping, shopping for food and the meals she was cooking. Since rationing was in force for much of the period of the diaries published so far Nella writes about the troubles of supply, fairness, quality and the need for ingenuity with meals.</div>
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Some of the finest writing comes when she is writing about her trips to the nearby Lake District, where she had grown up on her grandmother's farm. She writes lyrically of the beauty of the Lakes and of how their peace helped her and her husband. Throughout Nella's record of her relations, neighbours and friends is a delight; she has an ear for the interesting snippet of conversation. As I listened I grew genuinely fond of Nella and was very sad when the diaries ended; I am hoping there will be further books published, fingers crossed!<br />
<br />
You can see the other books in the Year in Books <a href="http://circleofpinetrees.com/year-books-march-2015/">here</a>.</div>
The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-54488913935152328142015-04-16T16:00:00.000+01:002015-04-16T16:00:13.037+01:00The Impatient ResterThe exertion of moving house and all the work it has entailed has knocked me for six; it is the worst ME crash in years and my word how impatient I am to be back on my feet! I am so bored of resting, of aching with tiredness and having to say "no" to things I really want to do. Days seem to float past, each one much alike and it is hard to keep from getting depressed by the situation. Now I do know that compared to many people I am incredibly lucky to be able to so much, but somehow that is never enough is it? I want to be getting stuck into church things, helping out, inviting people over, going places, exploring, making, gardening. The gap between what I can do and what I want to do is vast, a canyon, so if I say, "yes" to something or suggest doing something, then have to pull out, that is why. In terms of energy my eyes are bigger than my energy reserves.<br />
<br />
I am trying to stay positive, to take each day as it comes, be grateful for what I have, for the peace and chance to recover, but I am human and do not find it easy. Maybe my calling right now is just to be?<br />
<br />
A new arrival is helping make this time of resting bearable, I have adopted a small black cat named Willow from a local shelter. She is about six, affectionate, determined, funny, sweet and loving. There is nothing she likes more than a lap for the afternoon, cuddles by the hour and will sit on me in such a way that I cannot do anything else except sit, which for someone who struggles to rest, is invaluable. I wish I had had a cat years ago, they offer great companionship. I look forward to getting up now so I can go downstairs to see her.<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/16952878671" title="P1040522 by foggyknitter, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040522" height="375" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7596/16952878671_927c14de07.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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Perhaps I should write soon about what I have been knitting while I have been resting? For now it is time to head back to the sofa.The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-48997527181488448792015-04-03T21:57:00.000+01:002015-04-03T22:00:38.692+01:00The Year in Books - the first two monthsAlas moving house has absorbed all the energy (and some) of the first three months of the year, so I am catching up on the first two months' books in one post, then I will do another post for March and April. First off is January's book, which was <a href="http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/the-country-life-cookery-book.html">The Country Life Cookery Book</a> by Ambrose Heath, originally published in 1937 and republished last year by Persephone Books. It is arranged seasonally around the months of the year, each month starting with a wonderful illustration by Eric Ravilious and a short guide to what to do that month in the kitchen garden. Heath's intended audience seems to be the relatively affluent country-dweller, who relies on what is available in local village shops and in the kitchen garden; and it is assumed that both are well stocked. With an increasing connection now being made between growing and cooking vegetables, for example in some of the books published by Nigel Slater and programmes such as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05n91p4">Kew on a Plate</a>, it is interesting to see a writer ahead of his time in his insistence that there should be a greater link between kitchen and garden. In arguing for this he draws on the work <i>Vegetable Cookery</i> by a Mrs Elizabeth Lucas, who "offers the revolutionary theory that the gardener should be under the direction of the cook". While most of us today lack both servants, but his remarks on the vegetables to grow (or buy) and eat are still relevant and useful. Unlike many gardeners of his day he argues against going for size and large quantities of a few crops, in all things he is driven by taste. This comes across in his recipes, he writes with almost greedy interest and definite conviction: one of my favourite lines comes at the end of a recipe for an apple pudding, "Bake until the top crust is brown and crisp, and eat it with gratitude."<br />
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The second book, for February, is a novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Song-Issy-Bradley-Carys-Bray/dp/0091954371">A Song for Issy Bradley</a> by Carys Brae. At risk of straying into cliché, I found this hard to put down and was utterly absorbed in its world. However, it is one of those books that it is hard to review without giving too much away. In short it deals with the effects of a tragedy on a Mormon family living in the North West of England and observes the events through the eyes of different members of the family in turn. Throughout the family's faith both helps and hinders their grief and the novel explores the tensions of being a family living by different rules and beliefs to that of the community around them. I rarely read modern fiction, generally having too much of the back catalogue to get through, but heard the short story the novel started off life as on the radio and needed to read the rest of the story. It is beautifully written, cathartic (I did a fair amount of weeping), but not mawkish or depressing, do read it.</div>
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As ever you can see the other entries in The Year in Books <a href="http://circleofpinetrees.com/category/the-year-in-books/">here</a></div>
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The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-86320310679833960952015-02-18T22:43:00.000+00:002015-02-18T22:43:21.022+00:00More on changeSo it's been over a month and I have managed to miss last month's book, though it could be rather dull, I have mostly read technical booklets lately, on thrilling subjects like how to work the oven or what insurance covers. But I thought an update was long overdue.<br />
<br />
I am finally living in my new house, after a long period of doing things and sorting out, it is not totally sorted yet, some of my furniture has yet to arrive and the books have yet to make the big move. Although I never thought I'd manage to pack them all up, took nearly 40 boxes in the end. There have been hiccoughs like the heating breaking down twice and rodent related issues I wish I did not have to deal with, let us just say that Rentokil are expensive but lovely.<br />
<br />
All the work involved has been horribly hard on my health, ME, fibromyalgia and moving house do not mix well at all, I have been more tired and sore than in ages lately. Emotionally it is weird too, I am not some who deals well with change: last time Waitrose moved stock around I nearly had a panic attack. So a major life change like moving out on your own is good, but also feels odd, weird, strange and scary. There simply is no turning back and going home and being the same, I cannot let myself and there were lots of reasons I needed to be out, but staying means being brave again and again and again. Of course there have been happy times I have enjoyed, being able to welcome a friend to my place for the first time, exploring a new area (fantastic greengrocer up the road), being able to shut the door on the world, meeting a friendly local cat who insisted on exploring the house for himself. There are things I am looking forward to like planting the garden or having friends over for dinner for the first time. But there are also times when I start at every noise (not helped by aforementioned rodents) or wonder, "what next?" and "what am I doing here?".<br />
<br />
Throughout the long process of finding, buying and moving in I have been praying about this move, there have been a lot of questions about whether this is right and am I doing the right thing? And prayers that I would use this house to God's glory, to bring his kingdom here, to make people feel welcome and bless others. Even now I am having doubts about the whole thing: leaving the familiar, even uncomfortable familiarity, is unbelievably hard. I feel so shook up and strange, sometimes I look around and wonder what I am doing here and when the real owner is going to come home. On top of this I am beyond exhausted and having to take a couple of days' off to recuperate. Yet other people are so excited for me, which is lovely, but makes it hard to articulate how I feel at times. In a way it seems ungrateful: this should be fantastic, instead I feel all mixed up inside.<br />
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I am trying to pray, to lean on God, to let him be my stability in rapidly changing times, prayer can be such a challenge sometimes. He brought me through to here, he will keep being with me, I know he will, even though I feel a bit lost now. The best way forward I suppose is to try keep praying and to take each day at a time and if that seems too long, take each moment at a time. It will get easier, right?The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-43538526881980649012015-01-17T12:15:00.001+00:002015-01-17T12:16:59.357+00:00ChangeSorry for the radio silence, life has been rather hectic (for someone with ME anyhow!) as I am preparing to move out into my own place! It's all very exciting and we picked up the keys yesterday. In a lovely piece of timing today I turn 30, so it is a lot of change at once. To be clear about how bad I can be with change, I have come close to having a panic attack when Waitrose moved its fruit and vegetable section around before, so this whole process has been challenging. God has been good throughout though, without Him I would never have coped thusfar. Here is to a new decade, in a new place (about a mile and a half away from here and closer to church), with the same God and no doubt a lot of knitting!<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/14823255758" title="P1040101 by foggyknitter, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040101" height="375" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3852/14823255758_21e934e277.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">I'm going to miss this chap, hopefully I'll meet a new robin in my new garden.</span></div>
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Last year I read this poem by Dylan Thomas, written about his 30th birthday and loved it so much I decided I would post it here to mark my 30th:<br />
<br />
Poem in October<br />
<br />
It was my thirtieth year to heaven<br />
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood<br />
And the mussel pooled and the heron<br />
Priested shore<br />
The morning beckon<br />
With water praying and call of seagull and rook<br />
And the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall<br />
Myself to set foot<br />
That second<br />
In the still sleeping town and set forth.<br />
<br />
My birthday began with the water-<br />
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name<br />
Above the farms and the white horses<br />
And I rose<br />
In a rainy autumn<br />
And walked abroad in shower of all my days<br />
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road<br />
Over the border<br />
And the gates<br />
Of the town closed as the town awoke.<br />
<br />
A springful of larks in a rolling<br />
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling<br />
Blackbirds and the sun of October<br />
Summery<br />
On the hill's shoulder,<br />
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly<br />
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened<br />
To the rain wringing<br />
Wind blow cold<br />
In the wood faraway under me.<br />
<br />
Pale rain over the dwindling harbour<br />
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail<br />
With its horns through mist and the castle<br />
Brown as owls<br />
But all the gardens<br />
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales<br />
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.<br />
There could I marvel<br />
My birthday<br />
Away but the weather turned around.<br />
<br />
It turned away from the blithe country<br />
And down the other air and the blue altered sky<br />
Streamed again a wonder of summer<br />
With apples<br />
Pears and red currants<br />
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's<br />
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother<br />
Through the parables<br />
Of sunlight<br />
And the legends of the green chapels<br />
<br />
And the twice told fields of infancy<br />
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.<br />
These were the woods the river and the sea<br />
Where a boy<br />
In the listening<br />
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy<br />
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.<br />
And the mystery<br />
Sang alive<br />
Still in the water and singing birds.<br />
<br />
And there could I marvel my birthday<br />
Away but the weather turned around. And the true<br />
Joy of the long dead child sang burning<br />
In the sun.<br />
It was my thirtieth<br />
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon<br />
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.<br />
O may my heart's truth<br />
Still be sung<br />
On this high hill in a year's turning.The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-90910698058362083572014-12-25T00:00:00.000+00:002014-12-25T00:00:06.617+00:00Merry Christmas!Wishing you a very Merry Christmas full of hope and joy. I feel this poem sums up some of the majesty and mystery of Christmas and forms a counterpoint to the delights of turkey, tinsel and trimmings; it reminds us why we are celebrating. I love the last lines, they are a reminder that God has intervened and brought His kingdom into our world, the curtain between the two has been torn and the new time has already begun. Rejoice!<br />
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BC:AD<br />
<br />
This was the moment when Before<br />
Turned into After, and the future's<br />
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.<br />
<br />
This was the moment when nothing<br />
Happened. Only dull peace<br />
Sprawled boringly over the earth.<br />
<br />
This was the moment when even energetic Romans<br />
Could find nothing better to do<br />
Than counting heads in remote provinces.<br />
<br />
And this was the moment<br />
When a few farm workers and three<br />
Members of an obscure Persian sect.<br />
Walked haphazard by starlight straight<br />
Into the kingdom of heaven.<br />
<br />
U A FanthorpeThe Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-73388692426975403162014-12-21T00:00:00.000+00:002014-12-21T00:00:02.067+00:00Fourth Sunday in AdventDecember has been flying by, as it always does, so here is the fourth poem, another serious one, but shorter. This poem brought me up short, it has overtones of Sleeping Beauty, but a better happy ending. As Joseph says to his brothers at the end of Genesis, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good", I find God's ability to bring good out of bad a great comfort.<br />
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<b>The Wicked Fairy at the Manger</b><br />
by U A Fanthorpe<br />
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My gift for the child:<br />
No wife, kids, home;<br />
No money sense. Unemployable.<br />
Friends, yes. But the wrong sort –<br />
The workshy, women, wimps,<br />
Petty infringers of the law, persons<br />
With notifiable diseases,<br />
Poll tax collectors, tarts;<br />
The bottom rung.<br />
His end?<br />
I think we’ll make it<br />
Public, prolonged, painful.<br />
<br />
<i>Right, said the baby. That was roughly</i><br />
<i>What we had in mind.</i><br />
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<i><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/15774512907" title="P1040383 by foggyknitter, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040383" height="500" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7463/15774512907_d7a3539f3b.jpg" width="375" /></a></i><br />
<i><br /></i>The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-48197880503300350882014-12-19T00:10:00.000+00:002014-12-19T00:12:39.520+00:00The Year in Books DecemberNaturally my book for this month is Christmassy, how could it not be? I am not sure how I stumbled across <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christmas-Savages-Mary-Clive/dp/1903252318">Christmas with the Savages</a> by Mary Clive, but it is exactly the sort of book I would have adored as a child, gentle, funny and giving a window on the past. It is an account of a child's Christmas in a big country house at the turn of the twentieth century, observed with a quiet humour and that rare ability to remember how things feel and look to a child.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mary Clive photographed by Cecil Beaton at around the time <i>Christmas with the Savages</i> was published. Image National Portrait Gallery Collection</td></tr>
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Mary Clive was one of the sisters of the social campaigner Lord Longford and was recalling her own childhood Christmases in the book. Her life seems to have been heavily overshadowed by the two world wars, in the first her father was killed, devastating her mother and her husband died in the second. Despite this she seems to have been a woman of great spirit and I would love to read her account of life as a debutante and her autobiography. The illustrations are lovely and truly deserve printing on better paper to make the most of them. Definitely a book worth reading.<br />
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I also thought, as it was Christmas, that I would share a few of my favourite Christmas books, first those for children and then those for adults. However, there is no reason why the adults should not read the children's books, why should they get all the fun?<br />
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<b>Picture books</b><br />
<a href="http://www.hive.co.uk/book/the-snowman/5881336/">The Snowman</a>, Raymond Briggs - I read and watch this every Christmas, essential, see also his <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Father-Christmas-Raymond-Briggs/dp/0723277974/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418931660&sr=8-1&keywords=raymond+briggs+father+christmas">Father Christmas</a><br />
<a href="http://www.hive.co.uk/book/mogs-christmas/10877758/">Mog's Christmas</a>, Judith Kerr - Mog gets scared of the walking, talking Christmas tree<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lucy-Toms-Christmas-Picture-Puffin/dp/0140504699/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1418931512&sr=8-2&keywords=lucy+and+toms+christmas">Lucy and Tom's Christmas</a>, Shirley Hughes - a gentle, London Christmas, I also want to read <a href="http://www.hive.co.uk/book/alfies-christmas/19121321/">Alfie's Christmas</a> and <a href="http://www.hive.co.uk/book/the-christmas-eve-ghost/11065002/">The Christmas Ghost</a><br />
<a href="http://www.hive.co.uk/book/a-christmas-story/5748684/">A Christmas Story, Brian Wildsmith</a> - lovely retelling of the nativity story with pictures reminiscent of medieval manuscripts<br />
<a href="http://www.hive.co.uk/book/the-jolly-christmas-postman/10815727/">The Jolly Christmas Postman</a>, by Allan and Janet Ahlberg - packed with little surprises and wonderful illustrations<br />
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<b>For older children</b><br />
I love Noel Streatfield's descriptions of Christmas in books like <a href="http://www.hive.co.uk/book/ballet-shoes/10284574/">Ballet Shoes</a>* and Gemma, if you can get hold of it second hand she did an anthology, The Christmas Holiday Book, which is well worth looking for.<br />
Likewise the Christmas in Little Women by L M Alcott is very special.<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Just-William-Christmas-Richmal-Crompton/dp/033367104X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1418941142">Just William At Christmas</a>, Richmal Crompton - hilarious, I dip into this every year.<br />
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<b>Adults</b><br />
<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm">A Christmas Carol</a>, Charles Dickens - I'm not particularly a Dickens fan, but this is a gem and even if you feel you know the book from the numerous versions of it, it's well worth reading the original. The descriptions of Victorian London at Christmas are wonderful.<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christmas-Pudding-Capuchin-Classics-Mitford/dp/190742959X/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1418945803&sr=1-1">Christmas Pudding</a>, Nancy Mitford - very funny as she always is<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christmas-Stories-Diana-Secker-Tesdell/dp/1841596000/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418946268&sr=1-1&keywords=everyman+christmas+stories">The Everyman Book of Christmas Stories</a> - a lovely collection and beautifully produced book<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Virago-Book-Christmas-Michelle-Lovric/dp/1860499228/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418946297&sr=1-2&keywords=virago+christmas+stories">The Virago Christmas Book</a> - a mix of writing about Christmas, not all soft and fluffy<br />
<a href="http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?kn=phyllis+sandeman&sts=t&x=0&y=0">Treasure on Earth</a>, Phyllis Sandeman - out of print, but still available, autobiographical account of an Edwardian Christmas at Lyme Park in Cheshire. It is a delight and makes a nice companion to the Mary Clive book.<br />
<br />
Finally, I would love to read Michael Morpurgo's <a href="http://www.hive.co.uk/book/michael-morpurgo-christmas-stories/17743287/">Christmas stories</a>, am hoping for P L Travers' recently re-released <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aunt-Sass-Christmas-Stories-VMC/dp/0349005680/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418946297&sr=1-1&keywords=virago+christmas+stories">Aunt Sass</a> and this year also plan to read Dylan Thomas' <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Childs-Christmas-Wales-Dylan-Thomas/dp/1858810116/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418946129&sr=1-1&keywords=dylan+thomas+a+childs+christmas+in+wales">A Child's Christmas in Wales</a>, as well as re-acquainting myself with the Paddington Christmas stories in the free copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/More-About-Paddington-Michael-Bond/dp/0006753434">More About Paddington</a> that came with the Radio Times. While researching this I did find that <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Childs-Christmas-Wales-Dylan-Thomas/dp/1858810116/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418946129&sr=1-1&keywords=dylan+thomas+a+childs+christmas+in+wales">Penguin</a> have released a lovely looking collection of Christmas classics including Anthony Trollope's Christmas stories.<br />
<br />
You have probably realised by now that I love Christmas books, what are your favourites?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://cdn.static.ovimg.com/episode/487101.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.static.ovimg.com/episode/487101.jpg" height="244" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I have thoroughly enjoyed The Year in Books series by <a href="http://circleofpinetrees.com/">Circle of Pine Trees</a>, you can see the other December entries <a href="http://circleofpinetrees.com/year-books-december/">here</a>. I look forward to seeing what she suggests for 2015, certainly I shall continue to write about books, I do enjoy it.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Try to get an edition with the original illustrations by Noel Streatfeild's older sister Ruth Gervis, which Streatfeild apparently felt had captured the book perfectly. With such a perfect partnership between author and illustrator it seems a pity to me ever to change them, it would be like publishing Roald Dahl without Quentin Blake's illustrations.</span><br />
<br />The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-85369917501515157642014-12-14T00:00:00.000+00:002014-12-14T00:00:06.474+00:00Third Sunday in AdventThis Sunday I have chosen T S Eliot's <i>Journey of the Magi</i>, a vivid imaging of the long journey from the east. To me there seems to be a reminder of the Exodus story, leaving one place to follow God and entering that trustful discomfort, looking back with longing, but knowing you have to go on. There is a spiritual journey taking place alongside the physical journey and the poem leaves us in the "now but not yet" time in which we still live today, with God's kingdom being here, but not fully yet.<br />
<br />
There is a <a href="http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/journey-magi">recording</a> of Eliot reading his own poem, which is magnificent and well worth a listen, I hope you enjoy it and that your Christmas preparations are going well.<br />
<br />
<b>Journey of the Magi</b><br />
T.S. Eliot<br />
<br />
'A cold coming we had of it,<br />
Just the worst time of the year<br />
For a journey, and such a long journey:<br />
The ways deep and the weather sharp,<br />
The very dead of winter.'<br />
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,<br />
Lying down in the melting snow.<br />
There were times we regretted<br />
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,<br />
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.<br />
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling<br />
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,<br />
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,<br />
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly<br />
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:<br />
A hard time we had of it.<br />
At the end we preferred to travel all night,<br />
Sleeping in snatches,<br />
With the voices singing in our ears, saying<br />
That this was all folly.<br />
<br />
Than at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,<br />
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;<br />
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,<br />
And three trees on the low sky,<br />
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.<br />
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,<br />
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,<br />
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.<br />
But there was no information, and so we continued<br />
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon<br />
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.<br />
<br />
All this was a long time ago, I remember,<br />
And I would do it again, but set down<br />
This set down<br />
This: were we led all that way for<br />
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,<br />
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,<br />
But had thought they were different: this Birth was<br />
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.<br />
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,<br />
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,<br />
With an alien people clutching their gods.<br />
I should be glad of another death.The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-75644108203280330732014-12-08T19:43:00.001+00:002014-12-08T19:50:36.071+00:00A lovely day<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/15774200909" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="P1040359 by foggyknitter, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040359" height="375" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7534/15774200909_7b3a748345.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Greyhound Inn</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This last Saturday was my dad's birthday and one of those crisp, cold, bright, sunny days that make winter so much more bearable. We went to Carshalton, a former village, now swallowed up into south London, for lunch at the pub in the picture above and a walk. It was busy with a frost fair going on but the crowds were relaxed and there was a good atmosphere. I am still very tired from it but all in all it was a lovely day.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/15960215655" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="P1040366 by foggyknitter, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040366" height="375" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7516/15960215655_71a411381f.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tufted duck</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/15772832938" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="P1040379 by foggyknitter, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040379" height="375" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7464/15772832938_760615d2a4.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/15340613583" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="P1040384 by foggyknitter, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040384" height="375" src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8663/15340613583_b1ee05715a.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The other event of the weekend was reviving my Locke St Cardigan, which had been languishing for some weeks with only the left front left to complete. Hoping to finish it before Christmas, certainly it is the weather for it at present!The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-42685311829584330022014-12-07T00:00:00.000+00:002014-12-07T00:00:05.582+00:00Second Sunday in AdventI discovered this poem last Christmas, in an Advent book called Haphazard by Starlight, which has a poem for every day of Advent and loved it. It is another poem that connects the Christmas of long ago with now, but in a very different way, focusing instead on the hope that Christmas gives us. Hope for the future, that Jesus will return and the hope we have in us now, a hope that cannot be counted in a census or understood by the powers of this world.<br />
<br />
<b>In the days of Caesar</b><br />
By Waldo Williams, translated Rowan Williams<br />
<br />
In the days of Caesar, when his subjects went to be reckoned,<br />
there was a poem mad, too dark for him (naive with power)<br />
to read<br />
It was a bunch of shepherds who discovered<br />
in Bethlehem of Judah, the great music beyond reason and<br />
reckoning:<br />
shepherds, the sort of folk who leave the ninety-nine behind<br />
so as to bring the stray back home, dawning toward cock-crow,<br />
the birthday of the Lamb of God, shepherd of mortals.<br />
<br />
Well, little people, and my nation, can you see<br />
The secret buried in you, that no Caesar ever captures in his lists?<br />
Will not the shepherd come to fetch us in our desert,<br />
Gathering us in to give us birth again, weaving us into one<br />
In a song heard in the sky over Bethlehem?<br />
He seeks us out as wordhoard for his workmanship, the laureate<br />
of heaven<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/8721163174" title="P1030188 by foggyknitter, on Flickr"><img alt="P1030188" height="375" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7357/8721163174_2cc56d68fe.jpg" width="500" /></a>The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-51884496346911510182014-11-30T00:00:00.000+00:002014-11-30T22:46:44.055+00:00First Sunday in AdventThis Advent I thought I would mark the Sundays of Advent by posting some of my favourite Christmas poems, one on each Sunday, although the odd poem may appear on other days as well. I decided to start with an old favourite, Christmas by John Betjeman, which masterfully combines Christmas ancient and modern. I was introduced to this poem when a couple of us read some of it at a prep school carol concert at the local church and have loved it ever since.<br />
<br />
<b>Christmas</b> by John Betjeman<br />
<br />
The bells of waiting Advent ring,<br />
The Tortoise stove is lit again<br />
And lamp-oil light across the night<br />
Has caught the streaks of winter rain.<br />
In many a stained-glass window sheen<br />
From Crimson Lake to Hooker's Green.<br />
<br />
The holly in the windy hedge<br />
And round the Manor House the yew<br />
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,<br />
The altar, font and arch and pew,<br />
So that villagers can say<br />
'The Church looks nice' on Christmas Day.<br />
<br />
Provincial public houses blaze<br />
And Corporation tramcars clang,<br />
On lighted tenements I gaze<br />
Where paper decorations hang,<br />
And bunting in the red Town Hall<br />
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'<br />
<br />
And London shops on Christmas Eve<br />
Are strung with silver bells and flowers<br />
As hurrying clerks the City leave<br />
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,<br />
And marbled clouds go scudding by<br />
The many-steepled London sky.<br />
<br />
And girls in slacks remember Dad,<br />
And oafish louts remember Mum,<br />
And sleepless children's hearts are glad,<br />
And Christmas morning bells say 'Come!'<br />
Even to shining ones who dwell<br />
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.<br />
<br />
And is it true? and is it true?<br />
The most tremendous tale of all,<br />
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,<br />
A Baby in an ox's stall?<br />
The Maker of the stars and sea<br />
Become a Child on earth for me?<br />
<br />
And is it true? For if it is,<br />
No loving fingers tying strings<br />
Around those tissued fripperies,<br />
The sweet and silly Christmas things,<br />
Bath salts and inexpensive scent<br />
And hideous tie so kindly meant.<br />
<br />
No love that in a family dwells,<br />
No carolling in frosty air,<br />
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells<br />
Can with this single Truth compare -<br />
That God was Man in Palestine<br />
And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/15682061818" title="P1040324 by foggyknitter, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040324" height="375" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7545/15682061818_0ee5a469eb.jpg" width="500" /></a>The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-73346072023206558112014-11-28T18:23:00.000+00:002014-11-28T18:25:14.429+00:00The Year in Books: NovemberThis month's book, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dreaming-Suburb-R-F-Delderfield/dp/034096376X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417198166&sr=8-1&keywords=the+dreaming+suburb">The Dreaming Suburb</a> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._F._Delderfield">R F Delderfield</a>, is one set locally to wear I live, which is always a matter of great curiosity, to see a place one knows at a different time and through different eyes. The novel is set at the far edge of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiscombe">Addiscombe</a>, about a mile and a half east of central Croydon, then the far edge of London, where a street of suburban houses hit the countryside. Although sadly and predictably swathes of suburbs have covered much of that countryside since. The action opens as the First World War finished and followed various residents of the avenue through to the beginning of the second war, via the vicissitudes of the intervening years.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNJzOMAzJR3AO5ivpEWj-J_oSYPTYWKiwOweoHY_YS8yBZQtJgoPttDEKs7BnfPi9g19thIdrea7IyZLD_djQkkzXvYGIV6NZBjNO0bymrMCISEWqPobzVvuqNuo77BnHj4a2AssaczpvC/s1600/Delderfield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNJzOMAzJR3AO5ivpEWj-J_oSYPTYWKiwOweoHY_YS8yBZQtJgoPttDEKs7BnfPi9g19thIdrea7IyZLD_djQkkzXvYGIV6NZBjNO0bymrMCISEWqPobzVvuqNuo77BnHj4a2AssaczpvC/s1600/Delderfield.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">R F Delderfield</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Delderfield writes in defence of the suburbs, already by the 1940s (when he wrote the book) denigrated, arguing that residents of suburbs have dreams and worries, hopes and fears, just as a city or country dweller has. It is clear that he enjoyed his time living in Addiscombe as a child and that he retained vivid memories of the place. He has changed very little about his descriptions, depicting Addiscombe almost exactly as she was and is, almost street by street.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.addiscombe.net/tboa/full/016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.addiscombe.net/tboa/full/016.jpg" height="204" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Rec" 1918</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This is not a great work of literature but it is a pleasant, relaxing and engaging read: the characters are engaging and "real" and he is skillful at weaving a story through their various lives and the events that surround them. Throughout there is a definite sense of how people react in their various ways to the history that surrounds them, in this case things like the General Strike and the Munich crisis. The change in the suburb is charted too as the great houses decay and streets of terraces fill their grounds.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.addiscombe.net/tboa/full/029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.addiscombe.net/tboa/full/029.jpg" height="190" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Lower Road"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Croydon as a whole has a bad reputation and a low self esteem (if one can say that of a place?) these days and so it is lovely to see a time in her past when this was not so. A lot of these problems have come about from appalling decisions made in the second half of the twentieth century and which continue today. But Croydon does have a proud past and we should celebrate it more, from the <a href="http://www.friendsofoldpalace.org/">Old Palace</a>, regularly visited by kings and queens, especially Elizabeth I, to the <a href="http://www.croydononline.org/history/heritage/ashleighhouse.asp">college of the East India Company</a> and the <a href="http://www.croydononline.org/history/heritage/airporthouse.asp">world's first international airport</a>, which saw Amy Johnson return from her solo flight to Australia. Croydon has other literary claims to fame, for example, at the time that Delderfield lived in Addiscombe, D H Lawrence was living a few streets away, teaching at a nearby school and beginning his literary career and in the previous century Arthur Conan Doyle had lived a few miles away in South Norwood.<br />
<br />
But to get back to <i>The Dreaming Suburb</i>, I would recommend it as a gentle, well written book, which captures a time in our life as a nation through the lens of an ordinary street of ordinary people, a perspective different to most histories.<br />
<br />
Photographs of Addiscombe past from <a href="http://www.addiscombe.net/tboa/slideindex.htm">here</a><br />
<br />
To see the other entries in The Year in Books <a href="http://circleofpinetrees.com/year-books-november/">click here</a>The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-69954534097706676992014-11-17T23:42:00.002+00:002014-11-17T23:42:43.823+00:00Christian Community and the Sick<div class="western">
When I first heard about the <a href="http://www.stanselm.org.uk/">Community of St Anselm</a>, the new community of
prayer being established at Lambeth Palace for people aged 20-35 to
“spend a year in God's time”, I was terribly excited and ready to
sign up right away. I have been increasingly interested in the ideas
around community for some years now and the practises of regular
prayer through the day, although I have been less successful always
in establishing that discipline at home on my own. It sounds like a
fantastic opportunity to grow, learn and experience God. Most of all
I thought, “imagine not being lonely for a whole year, not being a
Christian alone, being with other Christians”. Being sick, unable
to work and coming from a non-Christian family has been intensely
lonely, both from a general point of view and from a specifically
Christian point of view.</div>
<div class="western">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western">
But then reality kicked in, the reality that this
community needed energetic people, it was there in the language of
discipline, rigour, discomfort and hard work. The reality that
someone like me would never keep up for a week, let alone a year.
The reality that being around people can be draining. The reality that being
chronically ill has made me something of a hermit, unable to be
around people, too tired to take part in so many things, not a
willing hermit, but one because of circumstance.</div>
<div class="western">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western">
My natural reaction to this is to be thoroughly
fed up at seeing yet another opportunity go out of my reach, being
shut out again because I have no energy to be busy and active,
feeling useless yet again. Yet although these feelings are valid and
need expressing, it does not have to end here does it? So I cannot
be part of this community? It does not mean that I and others like
me are shut out of all expressions of community?</div>
<div class="western">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western">
I hate to think of there being others out there
like me, each isolated from the wider church, feeling outside and
being unable to connect with one another. Although things are easier
now, I have been through times of intense isolation and still feel
too isolated from and out of step with other Christians my own age,
and I cannot be the only person in a similar situation? Beginning to
read Dietrich Bonhoeffer's <i>Life Together</i> has provided a
challenging view of community and I have been especially struck by
his view that to live in community with our brothers and sisters in
Christ is a privilege.</div>
<div class="western">
<br />
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“So between the death of Christ and the Last Day
it is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that
Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other
Christians. It is by the grace of God that a congregation is
permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God's Word and
sacrament. Not all Christians receive this blessing. The
imprisoned, the sick, the scattered lonely, the proclaimers of the
Gospel in heathen lands stand alone. They know that visible
fellowship is a blessing. They remember, as the Psalmist did, how
they went 'with the multitude... to the house of God, with the voice
of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday' (Ps. 42.4).
But they remain alone in far countries, a scattered seed according to
God's will. Yet what is denied them in actual experience they seize
upon more fervently in faith.”</blockquote>
<div class="western">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western">
So community is not only a privilege, but also a
prophetic way of living that foretells the way things will be on the
new earth. However, as we are still being remade and are not yet
fully perfected, living out this calling is a tremendous challenge as
we need to be able to leave behind our own needs, priorities and
concerns in order to love one another and live together in harmony.
Do the demands that illness make upon my body leave enough energy and
strength for this challenge?
</div>
<div class="western">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western">
In myself certainly no, but in God's grace and
with His help who knows what may be possible, always bearing in mind
that as things stand I am not healed. Therefore maybe my challenge
is to consider other means of living in a degree of community,
looking for a way for people like me, who are shut out because of
sickness, to come together for fellowship, be it virtual or visible?
Prayer is one of the few things you can still do when you have next
to no energy, so there is no reason for the sick to be shut out of
Archbishop Justin's call to prayer, but the challenge is to find ways
of enjoying the privilege and blessing of praying with others.
Paradoxically this illness has been the means by which I have learnt
to value prayer and to rely on God in prayer, because I have fewer of
my own resources. I have learnt that prayer takes incredible
perseverance, some days just concentrating enough is a massive
struggle and of course there are days when the prayer is the simple,
primeval, “help!” and no more. God is gracious and helps me when
I ask Him to help me with prayer and reading the Bible. But being
able to come together with other Christians daily for prayer
continues to be something I dream about.</div>
<div class="western">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div class="western">
It seems, therefore, that I will be sitting out
the Community of St Anselm, but perhaps it can prompt me to fresh
thinking about community and its different forms? And of course I
can pray, for the Community itself, for the wider church and that we
can find a way for people like me to take part in a community of
fellowship and encouragement, virtual and face to face. I have no
idea what form this will take or what it will look like, or even if
it will happen, but for now I will keep reading, praying, hoping and
waiting on God.</div>
The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-69594322209751265392014-11-02T13:36:00.000+00:002014-11-05T13:29:05.947+00:00H-H-Happy Birthday Hancock's Half HourToday marks 60 years since the first ever episode of my very favourite comedy show, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hancock's_Half_Hour">Hancock's Half Hour</a>, was broadcast. I first heard <i>Hancock</i> on a tape belonging to my parents and became hooked once BBC 7, now BBC Radio 4 Extra, started. <i>Hancock</i> even featured on the opening night of BBC 7 and I remember sitting beside my Dad's new digital radio laughing and laughing.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/e8786c03d9476380cc8ba7d2265761ebb2696d38.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/e8786c03d9476380cc8ba7d2265761ebb2696d38.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tony Hancock</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The show starred Tony Hancock, playing a version of himself, living first in a shared flat and then later at "23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam", with a group of friends who over the years included Bill Kerr, Sid James, Andre Melly and Hattie Jacques. Kenneth Williams was also a regular, playing a wide range of characters and making full use of his vocal talents. Hancock is a character whose ideas of himself do not always live up to reality and who shares traits with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diary_of_a_Nobody">Mr Pooter</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dad's_Army">Captain Mainwaring</a>; although he is less pompous he is still full of pretensions.<br />
<br />
Despite all the radio episodes being recorded in the 1950s the show remains fresh and funny; the only clues to its age being some of the topical references and prices. The clearest demonstration of this freshness is that in the re-recorded lost episodes that Radio 4 have just made they only had to change half a line in five episodes. Writers Alan Galton and Ray Simpson picked up on trends in the contemporary theatre, producing an episode in which Hancock is starring in a play called <i>Look Back in Hunger</i>, a reference to John Osbourne's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Back_in_Anger">Look Back in Anger</a> and the famous <i>Sunday Afternoon</i> episode makes reference to Beckett's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_Godot">Waiting for Godot</a>. The only thing that spoilt the show was Hancock's increasing jealousy of his co-stars, which meant that by the time the last television episodes were made none of his original co-stars were left in the show, a true loss. The early episodes where his co-stars are allowed more laughs are much funnier for it.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L-R Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock, Bill Kerr and Sid James</td></tr>
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I have listened to an episode of <i>Hancock</i> every week for years and have missed it lately while it has been off the air on Radio 4 Extra. However, to mark the anniversary (and help with my withdrawal symptoms!) the BBC have, as I mentioned earlier, re-recorded five lost episodes, the first of which went out on Friday - you can hear them <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04ly39j">here</a>. It was truly brilliant and they "got" most of the voices perfectly. Then in addition three hours of <i>Hancock</i> related programming went out on Radio 4 Extra yesterday - which you can hear <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n61gw">here</a>.<br />
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Get listening, you won't regret it! Anyone else into vintage radio comedy out there?<br />
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P.S. For vintage comedy geeks there is an amazing episode of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_from_the_Ministry">The Men From The Ministry</a> available <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ysk98">here</a>, in which the cast of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh">Much Binding in the Marsh</a>, the show in which Richard Murdoch, the co-star, really made his name in the 1940s, appear. It's truly delightful, very funny and according to my Dad (a retired civil servant) an accurate picture of civil service life.<br />
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P.P.S. There's a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n20tw">six part series</a> on the history of radio comedy 1975-2005 on Radio 4 started on Saturday. It's entertaining but I do wish they had started earlier.The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-5012747772054441322014-10-31T15:42:00.001+00:002014-10-31T15:42:42.293+00:00The Year in Books: October<div class="western">
This month's reading has been somewhat theological in nature; <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Surprised-Scripture-Engaging-contemporary-issues/dp/0281069859/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1414769525&sr=1-10">Surprised by Scripture</a> by Tom Wright, former Bishop of Durham, has particularly stood out. It is a collection of essays based on talks he has given, mainly in America and makes an excellent introduction to his theology and thinking. Wright has placed an emphasis on reading the Bible, especially the New Testament, within its own original context and then attempts to relate the Bible to today. Consequently he looks at the thinking which has led us to see the Bible in a particular way, especially the Reformation and the 18th century Enlightenment and the "surprise" in the title refers to the difference between what we may think the Bible says on a subject and what it truly says.<br />
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Although it may sound like a very heavy read its original lecture format has made it more readable and means that each chapter is relatively short. Wright takes on the enlightenment thinking, particularly the ideas of Epicureanism - that God created the world and then left it to itself for example - and takes these ideas back to the Bible to show that they have little or no biblical basis. Throughout he does not shrink from taking on difficult subjects such as politics, the environment and the role of women in the church - a chapter I found very freeing as Wright went back into the biblical text and its original context.<br />
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One of the biggest surprises of the book so far for me was the chapter entitled, "Jesus is coming - plant a tree!", about heaven and earth, explaining how God is not going to be rescuing us from this wicked earth and spiriting us away to heaven, but that Jesus is coming again to renew the earth. Therefore he argues that what we do here and now matters for the future, especially how we treat our planet, which is not all bad, although "subject to futility" (Romans 8.20). At the centre of this chapter is a fresh look at Romans 8.<br />
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I cannot recommend this book enough, indeed I have been going around telling everyone to read it! It is not the quickest read, but worth going through and giving consideration. Should you wish to try one or two of the chapters before committing to buying chapter six, "9/11, Tsunamis and the New Problem of Evil", is available <a href="http://www.spu.edu/depts/uc/response/summer2k5/features/evil.asp">here</a>, more articles by Tom Wright are available <a href="http://ntwrightpage.com/">here</a> and there is an interesting interview with Tom Wright <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/april/surprised-by-n-t-wright.html">here</a>. Get reading, stretch your brain and be surprised!<br />
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You can see the other entries in this month's Year in Books <a href="http://circleofpinetrees.com/year-books-october/">here</a></div>
The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-83410749713847630602014-10-10T21:51:00.002+01:002014-10-10T21:51:53.177+01:00Some Vintage Knitting ResourcesIn my journeys around the internet I have discovered some vintage knitting patterns and resources that I thought worth sharing. Although I knew about <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/">Trove</a>*, the free online archive of Australian newspapers and magazines, which contains many free patterns, it was only recently that I came across the collection of digitised knitting books put up by the <a href="http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/">State Library of Victoria</a>, Australia. The Australians truly are good to us.<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/15498375112" title="cover1 by foggyknitter, on Flickr"><img alt="cover1" height="500" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3936/15498375112_ae190768c2.jpg" width="315" /></a><br />
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Among the books I have found in the State Library's online collection is the <a href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/180762">1933 edition of Woolcraft</a>, a thoroughly useful publication containing a wide range of patterns, particularly strong on socks and baby clothes. I have started gradually adding the patterns to Ravelry and they can be seen <a href="http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/sources/patons-woolcraft-8th-edition">here</a>; it is going to take me a while to get them all up there. Incidentally the 1915 edition is among a range of books available <a href="http://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/html/warm/knitting.htm">here</a>.<br />
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My personal favourite is the 1948 <a href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/180762">Woman's Knitting Book</a> which features this dashing reindeer jumper on the cover, which unusually for the period is fully charted. You can see the woman's role in society in flux between the wartime working women, as seen in a knitted suit, "designed primarily for the business girl or traveller" and the 1950s ideal housewives, as seen in a brightly smiling advert for "Raco Aluminium Ware", "Bright Kitchens Happy Homes". There is a good range of patterns for all the family, including a man's skiing jumper, baby's layette, gloves, cardigans and socks. I have added the front cover jumper to <a href="http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/snowflake-128">Ravelry</a> as I thought it might appeal to those looking for a retro Christmas jumper.<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/15498738425" title="woman's knitting book by foggyknitter, on Flickr"><img alt="woman's knitting book" height="500" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3954/15498738425_86bcecc47c.jpg" width="354" /></a><br />
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Given the age of the collection it is unsurprising that there are various booklets of "service woollies" or "knitted comforts", the austerely covered booklet P&B (Patons and Baldwins) <a href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/140947">Knitting Made Easy</a> from 1941 is part pattern catalogue, with tips on knitting for the forces and a handful of patterns. There is also a <a href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/139362">booklet</a> from the Australian Comforts Fund dating from 1940 and a booklet from department store Coles, <a href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/139379">Knitting for the Forces</a>.<br />
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The last item I will mention for today is the <a href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/180751">Viyella Nursery Book</a>, listed as dating from the 1940s and containing a great many patterns for babies and children up to five years old. Some of the patterns are perhaps knitted with finer yarns than we might use today, but a little adaptation could make bigger garments. There are a great many other baby booklets such as <a href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/139363">From 2 to 5: 11 smart and practical new styles</a>, Smith's Ideal <a href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/140951">Baby knits</a> and <a href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/140949">Toddler knits</a> and <a href="http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/154399">Baby Knitting 6 months - 2 years</a>. Also included are a great many baby books by a lady called Ella Allan but I shall go into them in another post.<br />
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I hope you enjoy these resources as much as I have been.<br />
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P.S. My crochet blanket is making slow but steady progress.<br />
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/16951061@N05/15282586780" title="P1040286 by foggyknitter, on Flickr"><img alt="P1040286" height="375" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5601/15282586780_56e2a3b32f.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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*There is a <a href="http://www.ravelry.com/groups/trove">Trove group</a> on Ravelry whose members have been doing an amazing job of locating patterns and adding them to the pattern database.The Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3483695869118605067.post-30501568798046160042014-09-29T00:07:00.000+01:002014-09-29T00:09:09.338+01:00The Year in Books: SeptemberDuring the commemorations for the centenary of the First World War last month I decided that I should re-read Vera Brittain's memoir <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Testament-Youth-Autobiographical-Study-1900-1925-ebook/dp/B002U3CCH4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411939317&sr=8-1&keywords=vera+brittain+testament+of+youth">Testament of Youth</a> sooner rather than later. There was, of course, the usual trepidation one feels when approaching a book one first read as a teenager, but I am happy to say that it has more than held up to my memory of it as a magnificent book. Vera Brittain left Somerville College, Oxford after one year to serve as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse (or VAD) during the war and the book covers her life from her birth in 1893 until 1925, when she married. <i>Testament of Youth</i> is particularly valuable in giving an impression of the state of mind of the British in the run up to the war, throwing some light on why it was such a cataclysmic event and so very shattering to those who lived through it.<br />
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The first clue to this is given in the preface written by her daughter, the politician <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/baroness-williams-of-crosby/740">Shirley Williams</a>, who writes that one reason we are so haunted by the war is, "the total imbalance between the causes for which the war was fought on both sides, as against the scale of the human sacrifice". Brittain's account of the parts of the line, in the early part of the war, where neither side could see the point in killing one another and so had a small voluntary truce, shooting into the air and no man's land, is just one illustration of this point. Why this war in particular has caught our collective imagination and is such an important part of our collective story is a question I have often pondered. Our collective remembrance of war is still, a century on, so strongly shaped by the First World War, with our Remembrance Day poppies and our misty-eyed reading of Rupert Brooke and "age shall not weary them".<br />
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Brittain's book is a true help to understanding this question, by providing a solid pre-war background she is able to show how shattering the war was to her generation. There seems to have been a deep complacency and belief in progress, running alongside a belief in the spiritual good of war, testing us and even (in a way that would seem shocking to a post-1945 audience) purging the population. Brittain's account of attending speech day at her brother's public school in July 1914, with its military manoeuvres, shows the incredible militarism of the pre-war public schools, whence came most of the politicians and leaders of Britain. The Arnoldian* curriculum of Officer Training Corps, sport and extensive study of Classics** lent itself to a romanticised, spiritual view of war; it is after all a small leap from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae">Pass at Thermoplyae</a> to the poetry of the early part of the war. However, these ideals failed to live up to the realities of trench warfare where death came at random from a shower of shells and bullets, killing indiscriminately the strong with the weak.<br />
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Testament of Youth has more than lived up to my teenage memories, it is an epic read, but not only is it worth reading, it is engrossing, so that you do not realise that you have somehow read a hundred, or two hundred pages. According to the biography of Brittain at the beginning of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Testament-Of-Generation-Journalism-Brittain/dp/086068444X">Testament of a Generation</a> (a collection of her and Winifred Holtby's journalism) she found the book extremely hard to write, but I am immensely glad she persevered. I cannot recommend this book enough, do go and read it, it will enrich your understanding of the First World War immeasurably, but you will also spend time in splendid company.<br />
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Incidentally, reading <i>Testament of Youth</i> alongside <i>Testament of a Generation</i> has provided an interesting counter-point and each has cast some light on the other. Aside from the impression that feminism has not advanced that far from the 1920s and that in politics little changes, each book has provided flashes of insight that have illuminated aspects of one another. I was particularly interested to read an article discussing, in 1929, calls for the abolition of Remembrance Sunday, some apparently feeling that 11 years was quite sufficient to have remembered the war. Likewise her horror at finding her children's nanny fixing a poppy on baby Shirley's cot for Remembrance Day throws light upon the gulf Brittain felt between her generation and the one that followed it; for her the poppy was a symbol of war and grief, but for her young nanny it was another "flag day" like any other.<br />
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You can see the rest of The Year in Books entries <a href="http://circleofpinetrees.com/year-books-september/">here</a><br />
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*Dr Arnold of Rugby School, whose reforms set the pattern for public schools in the 19th century and whose influence is still felt today, cf. <i>Tom Brown's School Days</i><br />
**Many of the texts studied were decidedly martial in flavour such as Homer, Thucydides and CaesarThe Foggy Knitterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06052717128048264313noreply@blogger.com4