CLICKING NEEDLES

Today, being Monday, is Clicking Needles day, which I discovered is the official name of the knitting circle. Last night I finished my 13th square but decided that might be unlucky so I began a 14th before I went to bed. Jeanette had not finished her knitting 'homework', so she came round for a cup of tea this morning and we sat together at the dining room table for a pre-knitting bee knitting bee. I admired her baby fair isle sweater which she assured me has been a lengthy work in progress. She talked more than knitted, which I think partially explains why her little knit is a long time coming to fruition, but I managed to finish the 14th square:



Once at the knitting circle, the talk was all about the robbery last night which is big news in the village. Someone had got into Jean's potting shed and stolen four single duvets and a fireside companion set. There were TVs and double duvets there too, but these had not been taken. There has been one other robbery this year when a wood shed was broken into and some wood and a wood cutter stolen. Perhaps the burglar is gradually renovating a new home? Or maybe it's a disturbing sign of the changing times in a village where people rarely lock their front doors - something I find quite liberating but now I'm not so sure, if there is a cleptomaniac homemaker on the loose. Janet admitted she now locks her front door when she goes to her utility room. This caused some hoots of laughter for being rather posh - "int that tha scullery?"

Talk turned to the current smoke alarm problem. Dawn, a very elegant, elderly Canadian woman who came here with her Scottish beau she met during the war, was told when she bought her smoke alarm that the battery would last 10 years and 'see her out' (great cackles at this). But the smoke alarm beeped at 3.00am. She thought it was an owl but realising it was the smoke alarm disarmed it and put it in a cupboard. It still beeps. This also happens to Julia's smoke alarm, usually at 3.30am, and she is worried that if there is a real fire she will sleep through the alarm, as she has become so used to the beeping. Petrina took the battery out of hers but it still kept beeping so she massacred it with a knife. The consensus is that the local hardware store sold them a duff batch, way past their use-by date.

I've a feeling knitting squares might be a joke at my expense. The other ladies produced beautiful baby hats, bootees, socks and jackets; an extraordinary fluffy scarf; an Aran sweater; and a stunning cardigan with exquisite detail. I have decided it's time to up my game and I have appropriated a pattern for premature baby hats and some white wool - watch this space! As promised, here is a photograph of the flowers the ladies knitted:




Humbling, let me tell you.