Heat waves

It certainly is hot here today.  The weathermen keep referencing 2006, of which I have no recollection at all.  1976, however, was memorable for a number of reasons.  We visited Blenheim Palace and the water in the lakes was so low that fish were dying.  Everywhere was parched and yellow.

In 2003, the weather was scorching just at this time.  Sadly, a colleague with a long-term health issue went home for the holidays and died overnight - on the first night of the school holidays. She was someone who really enjoyed life and it seemed a terrible irony that she worked to the last day, but did not get even oneday of holiday.

 We all gathered for her funeral on a very hot day, so hot that someone wore a strapless black dress to the ceremony.  I had already gone north and made a special trip back south for the funeral.  We had booked a cottage in the Duddon valley and we spent the day after my return sitting on the banks of the Duddon with our feet in the water, reading the Sunday papers.  The number of days in a lifetime when it would be possible to do that is very small, so we will always remember it.

It was also in 2003 that I bought two whole packs of Rowan yarn in Oxfam, with the Rowan magazine: Kidsilk Haze in burnt orange and Cork in a pale grey.  Someone must have made an expensive mistake.  I have been waiting for the right project for the Cork these ten years.

In this hot weather, I have been knitting a cabled strip for a new throw.  The narrow width means that it is easily portable and does not add to the heat of the knitter.  With one strip complete I have begun this spindle shape, using the grey Cork.  I am trying for a more random effect, using neutral tones, but not trying to balance all the patterns.  This goes against the grain, but I am trying to convince myself that random is good.