Ossianknits

Pipers! And Soldiers! And Uniforms! And a Parade!

Gosh, two posts in one day - now that's impressive! Unfortunately (or fortunately), another non-knitting one.

I was having lunch at home today when I suddenly heard some piping outside. There are often pipers in St Andrews - it is, after all, in Scotlandshire. But this one sounded really close, so I looked outside the window, and saw this:

Guns. And men in uniform. Weird. And then a few pipers walked over! Pipers! In Kilts! Awesome!

Turns out there was a parade today! RAF Leuchars was granted the freedom of the city of St Andrews 40 years ago today, so they thought it fit to hold a little ceremony, complete with four jets flying by! (I didn't get a picture of the jets because I didn't know they were coming).

Then they marched.

And then the pipers stopped right in front of me!!!

 

And:

 

And then they marched off again!

Leprechaun

I have morphed into a leprechaun. According to the OED, leprechauns are "In Irish folk-lore, A pigmy sprite ‘who always carries a purse containing a shilling’ (O'Donovan in O'Reilly Irish Dict. Suppl. 1817)". Now, I'm sadly lacking the purse containing a shilling, but I have turned leprechaun colour: ginger with light green bits? Why are leprechauns that colour? Not sure, but I'm certain they are.

I was supposed to turn proper green. Grass green, you know. But I think the 'go blonde' stuff I used wasn't quite up to the task of turning my darkish brownish hair to blonde. It removed all the brown bits and left me with ginger. I didn't even know I had ginger in me. Apparently I do. I kind of like it, but it's not quite what I envisaged. Nevermind. I have more dye ordered - a darker green and a darker blue - that might do the job better. And I might bleach it properly. Maybe. Not sure yet.

Other than that, I thought I'd introduce another exciting book today. The section of the chapter I'm working on at the moment (which I'll be starting after I finish posting this, but I've thought about it for months) is focussed on the historical sources of the poem I'm working on. My poem, unlike others in the period, takes its story from the history books - even keeps the names - instead of ballads etc. Not only that, it is based on medieval history - a 9th-century Danish attack on Scotland. I think I found the two history books Macpherson got the story from, but I'm not an expert in the period - there is so much I simply don't know. I'm not a trained historian either, so it's quite difficult to find the right sort of books. Now, when I was in Edinburgh a few (3?) weeks ago (to get my macbook repaired), I wandered past the uni Blackwell's, which is big and has a rather large Scottish section. As I was browsing through the Scottish non-fiction, I came across this beauty:

It's not really this weird colour. It's light blue - a pretty light blue - and not nearly as shiny (it's shiny because I wrapped it in sticky-back plastic).

The Atlas of Scottish History to 1707, ed. P. G. B. McNeill and H. L. MacQueen (Edinburgh: The Scottish Medievalists and Department of Geography, Univ. of Edinburgh, 2000).

It's an amazing publication. It's a collection of literally hundreds of maps (modern made-up ones, not old ones) denoting all sorts of geographical, sociological, religious, political and cultural statistics. It's a wonderful resource for all things Scottish, and it's list of contents reads like an encyclopedia: Introductory; Events to about 850; Events from about 850 to 1460; Events from 1460 to 1707; Administration; Economic Development; the Church; Social and Cultural; Regional and local. The information in there is incredibly diverse, ranging from Glaciation and Routeways to Climatic Processes and Provinces and Districts; from the Roman Empire to Pictish Place-names and Anglo-Scottish Relations to Scotland and Europe; from Shires and Thanages to Burghs and Forests; from Trade with Europe to Taxation and Prices; from Monastic Orders and Hospitals to Colleges and Hermitages; from Castles and Strongpoints to the Crusades and Military Orders. A wonderful resource - shame it only goes up to the Union.

So, dear readers, I'll leave you to pursue the Danes. Why don't you drop me a line in the comments to introduce yourselves - it'd be great to get to know you :)

 

FO: Earthy Jaywalkers.

There has been knitting! Sock Wars is still going on, although the organiser has ended the competition and asked everyone still alive to mail in a postcard. I did that today - should get to N Ireland by Saturday (when the draw is). Someone else has taken over the game and asked people to continue playing, and I think I will. I received SiP on June 11th, about a week ago now. They consisted of one completed sock and one where the cuff had been done. The completed one looks awfully big, so I measured the gauge and it's off. I asked Julie what to do, and she said to frog it and knit again. In order to achieve gauge I need my 2.25cm needles, which have been stuck in my earthy Jaywalkers for a month. So I decided to finish the Jaywalkers first (after casting on for the SW socks about three times and realising it wasn't going to work with 2.5 needles).

I finished the Earthy Jaywalkers two nights ago. They're made from the same yarn that I made my original pair of SW socks from. They're quite tight but fit me great. I wore them all day yesterday and simply adore them:

Excuse the deadly pale legs.

Aren't they great? They're not a shiny in real life, but the colours are quite true. The yarn is perfect for jaywalkers with its perfect stripes and little dark brown striplets. I still have quite a lot leftover - maybe enough for another pair if I do the cuffs, heels and toes in a different yarn? I know the boy likes them a lot - I might try to make him a pair sometime.

I'm now working on the SW socks. I tried the 9st repeat but I don't like the way it looks at all, so I think I'll go back to the 8st one. It looks and feels better, and I think they'll fit my new target better. I don't like the yarn very much - I think it's Tofutsies, but I'm not sure - it splits horridly and I noticed at least one knot when I rewound it into a centre pull ball. The colour isn't great either - light grey and off white. I don't think I would buy those socks in a shop, and I certainly wouldn't have bought that yarn. But I'll happily knit on. I hope I don't get killed before I can finish them (there has been no more communication from my assassin, except an email about 3 weeks ago).

In other news, I have ordered green hair dye. I used to wear my hair green when I was in school and I'm quite excited to try it again.

Roman Trier

Here is the last part of our trip: Roman Trier! Trier is a pretty awesome city - arguably the oldest in Germany - and although I have been a few times before I always like it again. The boy had never been, and I knew he was going to like it a lot.

We parked in the city centre and the first thing we saw as we got out of the car park was the Porta Nigra. It is one of the largest Roman city gate north of the Alps, and is still in pretty good condition. They built a concrete spiral staircase inside in the seventies when they opened it to the public, which makes it a fun and accessible visit (and a cheap one, too!)

The Porta Nigra with one of two tschoo-tschoo-trains that go round and round Trier

Inside on the first floor.

Light streaming through the arches on the first floor. There is a relief of St Augustine on the second pillar from the left.

More arches.

Detail of the masonry on one of the pillars.

The Porta Nigra was turned into a church after a hermit locked himself in it for seven years, but most of the 'Christian' elements were removed by Napoleon, who wanted to 're-Romanise' the gate. There were only a few churchy bits left, such as the reliefs in the third picture and some fainted painted decorations.

There were a number of impressive churches, but two in particular stood out: the Dom (or cathedral) and the Constantinbasilika. Both were built by the emperor Constantine, who also built churches in Rome, Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The Dom houses the Holy Robe, the seamless coat Jesus supposedly wore before he was crucified. The basilika is huge and didn't come out very well in the photos. It now houses a protestant church. The Dom, however, came out great!

Taken from the first floor of the Porta Nigra. The sun came out later.

Looking up to the main spire.

View up from inside the cloisters.

Also inside the cloisters. In the background is the Liebfraubasilika, which is right next to the Dom. Apparently the whole thing was always planned as a double church.

We also visited some of the Roman baths in the city. The Kaiserthermen, the smaller of the two, are great: you can walk underground around all the different chambers!

Part of the standing structure of the baths. This was used as part of the city walls in medieval times.

The other side of the standing structure. The basilika is also built from these tiny red bricks.

The grounds of the baths.

Underground!

We really enjoyed the trip. Trier was my (and the boy's) favourite part - shame we had to get back home for bbq that night (Trier is about a three hours' drive from where my parents lived, so we had to leave right after lunch). We did, however, have time for a wee winetasting...

Cupcakes!

I was going to continue my travelogue with our final stop, Trier, today. It's quite a dreary day - sunny-ish but with lots of rain. It's World Wide Knit in Public Day, too, but I didn't feel like braving the elements (although Pip and her mother set out for the West Sands earlier on). Instead, I decided to make cupcakes - and they turned out so well that this entry is devoted to them :)

Yay - perfect cupcake!

I'm no baker. I don't really enjoy cooking. I have, in the past, tried to bake various things but they never turned out quite right. But cupcakes are small - and easy, right? So I bought a muffin tin at Ikea yesterday, and, inspired by Jen's recent post, used the same recipe she did. They didn't take very long, and came out perfect. They're delicious, and they look great. I made 15 all in all - 12 to take to J&C's for dinner tonight, and three that the boy and I just ate. Awesome! There was, just like Jen said, a lot of leftover icing...

The almond-ricotta mixture in the tin.

See the blueberry in the bottom picture and the raspberry in the top one?

Ah, finished baking.

Mmmh... raspeberries...

The raspberry ones are iced and ready to go.

Closeup of the raspberry one.

The blueberry ones...

Closeup of the blueberry one.

Holiday...

The boy and I went to Germany for the weekend. Mainly to take my grandparents back (not speaking English makes travelling from Scotland to Germany rather tricky), and also to see everyone again. I wasn't originally going to go home over the summer, but I quite enjoyed it. We arrived on Friday afternoon, and after an hour of lazing about at home we set out for Wuppertal and its Brauhaus, a large bar housed in the old public baths. It was sunny and warm so we sat outside in the beergarden for a pint of the beer that they brew in the Brauhaus. Nice. Then we went to the Donaustuben, a very old-fashioned themed restaurant (that has been there for just over 40 years). Its theme is the Danube, and the different countries it flows through. They're menu is gigantic (not very veggie friendly, but it's asparagus season at the moment, so I had a lovely asparagus* dish and some deep-fried camenbert). Inside the restaurant there are lots of little wooden houses, all named for different regions, and a paper-mache rock and a huge barrel where people can sit in. It's very tacky and kitschy, but rather fun.

*German asparagus is almost always the thick white kind, and hardly ever the thin green stuff. I prefer the green kind, but the white is very lovely when it is in season (which it is at the moment). I foolishly mentioned this to my mother, who sent my grandma out to buy some for us to take back on saturday. She bought 3 kgs!

This is some of the asparagus we brought back, waiting to be peeled and steamed. We're having some in a risotto tonight.

On the saturday we set out for a trip down the Rhine and Moselle rivers. We stopped of at Eltz Castle, a very picturesque medieval castle situated in a lovely valley.

I really like the old-fashioned postbox (with a sloping roof, and slits either side), and the little dragon rainsprout:

We then had lunch in Cochem, which also has a nice castle (a lot more Disney-looking that Eltz), and a pretty market place and library.

 

The library. See the little sign? It's shaped like a book!!

We spent the night in Bernkastel-Kues. It's a pretty Moselle town, literally halfway down the river, with lots of timber houses and wine tasting.

Very German, no? We ended up having dinner in the restaurant on the left, which was excellent. I had a salad with goat's cheese on home-made bread, and the others all had wild garlic pesto linguine. Delicious!

Bernkastel-Kues is always lovely. We stayed in the Kues part of town, across the bridge, where Nikolaus von Cues (or Cusanus) was born in 1401. I've been a few times before (usually on the way to Trier), and I do love it's Germanic charm.

The view from the bridge over towards Bernkastel and the vineyards behind it

The other side of the market square 

The market square again

There were a number of very cool old-fashioned shop signs in Bernkastel, such as the cafe, and the pub:

Bernkastel also had a pretty exciting postbox (a reproduction of a nineteenth-century one):

Stay tuned for the second half of the trip: Trier (the oldest city in Germany) and a family BBQ to round things off!

Spinning, Weaving, and a holiday

My grandparents came over for a visit last week. They've been here twice before: once in May 2005, and once in November 2005 (for my MLitt graduation). They arrived on Monday and left again on Friday - and because they don't speak any English at all the boy and I went back with them and stayed there just for the weekend.

My grandfather turned 80 on Monday. This is the second birthday he has celebrated in the UK - we toured the south of England in 2004 at the beginning of June. He comes from an old weaving family - they used to have great big looms and other weaving implements in their big shed. He himself never worked with looms as an adult, but he has always been interested in textiles and weaving and to this day really enjoys clothes-shopping (not so much for himself, but he always loves to come along). So because this visit was more about them than me (with the birthday and all), I decided to visit a couple of textile-related sights. The Verdant Works in Dundee is all about jute, and New Lanark is a nineteenth-century cotton mill and village.

The Verdant Works is a museum  about jute, one of Dundee's traditional three J's (jute, jam and journalism). It is housed in one of the original jute factories, and is an impressive reminder of Dundee's industrial past. It teaches a lot about jute: where it is grown, how it is harvested, how it is manufactured, what it is turned into. Jute was used for a surprising number of things: ropes, sails, sacking, clothes, covers for wagons, the underside of carpets and sofas, and all sorts of other industrial usages. The museum had a number of looms, both old and newer, and lots of interactive displays and videos. Virtually everything could be touched - a hands-on museum!

This is one of the old looms:

A hand-powered wooden one.

They also had more modern spinning and weaving machines:

  

 

I really liked the smaller items, like shuttles and cones of jute:

  

We've always had lots of shuttles at home - smaller ones  mostly, and the ends were pointy. My mother used to decorate them with flowers. These ones here were huge - at least 2 feet!

 

  

Neat, huh? Unfortunately their shop wasn't very good - they only had a few jute bags for sale, but no actual spun jute.

New Lanark, on the other hand, had lots of yarn for sale - lots and lots and lots! They also sell it online (and their shipping rates are very reasonable. And the yarn is cheap). It is, however, woolen yarn, not cotton (like they used to spin there originally). I bought enough yarn for two jumpers - one for myself, and one for the boy - and I think there'll still be lots of leftovers!

There are three mills at New Lanark, but only one houses spinning machines now. The other two are shops. There is also a big hotel and a youth hostel now. You can also visit the owner's house, the school, the village shop (the first ever co-op) and a miner's house. You can watch the yarn being spun, which is rather exciting!

   

Geekyness

I wasn't feeling too great yesterday and spent most of the day at home. Playing computer games. I used to love Dungeon Keeper, but when I got my first mac back in 2005 I had to stop playing it because there isn't a mac version :(

There are several ways to simulate windows on a mac. I like parallels the best (because I don't have a post-SP-2 version of windows so bootcamp is out of the question), and it's pretty cool.


























See? Windows on a mac!


It has its drawbacks. It crashes (windows, not parallels). It's not very pretty. It's annoying to use. But... and this is the exciting bit.... it does this:












Dungeon Keeper was never the most stable game, even when I played it on a proper windows machine. This one will turn itself off occasionally (without warning!), but regular saving of your progress makes that bearable.



So that's what I did for most of yesterday. I built dungeons.



There was also some knitting. I'm on the second sleeve of the Caitlin jumper, halfway through the colourwork. It's much neater this time, and I think the jumper looks great. I hope it'll fit!

---
In other news, the boy has won a scholarship to study in Venice next year! For at least five months, possibly more! I'm happy for him - everyone should live abroad at some point - but of course I'm also sad that he won't be around. We've never really been apart since we started going out, apart from the odd week or two over Christmas and for research trips and holidays. It'll mean more time (not that he takes up time, but it's different when you only have yourself to consider), which could be translated into more knitting time! I'll probably read more, too. And I think I might get more work done, like I used to when I was an undergrad. I'm thinking about rearranging the furniture so that I can have a desk in my room and thus work from home - I seem to be less productive in the office and procrastinate more there. But we'll have to see about that. Right now I'm not even sure if I can stay in the flat, because if the boy's share of the rent falls away, my flatmate and I are going to have to pay more. I'm quite happy with that, but I'm not sure if she can afford it (and we pretty much live in one of the cheapest places in town). Of course, there's also the added benefit of having someone to stay with in Venice. Venice! And I can finally visit Florence, and Rome, and Pompeji!

This is the church he studies, Santa Maria dei Carmini. It's pretty, and slightly remote, and off the tourist's track. Not as wowing as, say, the Frari, but nice, and cosy. With a hidden fresco in the presbytery!

Book of the Day

I used to have a reading blog when I first started my PhD. I soon gave up, but occasionally posted quotes from my reading on my personal blog (which I have also since given up. Knit-blogging is much more exciting!). However, with the silly chapter growing and my deadline looming closer I just haven't been knitting much. Last night we went over to our friends' house to watch Lord of the Rings, the extended version. Lord knows what made me go along - I saw the movies once, when the third one came out, and hated them. I tried the books, and hated them. I hated The Hobbit. I really dislike fantasy in general. I thought it would be worth it for the company, but frankly... the whole evening sucked! I brought some work and wrote a paragraph (not a bad one either), and got out the knitting. It got progressively darker and I knitted rather slowly, but I'm now halfway through the first sleeve on my mother's Caitlin jumper. I really need to finish it before my grandparents come for a visit at the beginning of June, because we're going to travel back together. I'll only be visiting for a weekend, but I would nonetheless like to be able to present my mum with the finished jumper. It's taken my long enough.

Anyway, back to the reading... I thought I would introduce a new category: 'Book of the Day'. One of the advantages is that I can post about books from my office, and the inbuilt iSight camera is good enough to take pictures of books (not so much for the knitting).

I thought I'd start off with this beauty*, which arrived in the post this morning (for a moment I thought it might be the deadly socks, but no. It was the book):




A. S. Cowper, SSPCK Schoolmasters 1709-1872 (Edinburgh: Scottish Record Society, 1997).








Doesn't sound very exciting? Let me assure you that it is. It a list of virtually all of the SSPCK (Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge) schoolmasters employed between 1709 and 1872, arranged alphabetically by name. It is very complete. And based on the SSPCK records in the National Archives of Scotland. It saves an awful lot of time tracking down these people. Really most excellent. The only thing I can think of that would improve it is if there was also a listing by place, or at least county. But this is invaluable nonetheless.

How is it relevant to my research? At one quick look I can find out whether or not Macpherson was ever an SSPCK schoolmaster.















See? He wasn't. Yes, there is a James. But not the right one. I'm looking for the Ruthven/Kingussie/Badenoch one, not the Dunkeld one. Exciting, huh?

Also, and this is really fabulous, Cowper remarks in his introduction that 'Society schools did not compete with parish school. Rather they tried to implement the Reformation dream of Christian education throughout Scotland' (p. ii). The 18th-century accounts are rather vague in their definition of parochial schools / SSPCK schools / grammar schools and tend to assimilate the three. Unfortunately no other records (than the SSPCK ones) survive for Ruthven/Kingussie for the 1730-50s (or at least none that are relevant to my query). Shame. But still useful!

See how this is exciting?

* 'beast' is the prompt at HS/MS. I think this book is a beauty. Others might think it's dreadfully beastly boring. So I think this counts :)

I'm still alive

I'm still alive - no sign of socks arriving. Worse though, no sign of my socks having killed my target, or my assassin having been killed by my assassin's assassin, or my assassin killing me! This silence thing going on everywhere is a tad nervewracking!

There were two packages this morning - and one even contained socks! Not deadly ones - mis(s)-matched ones! Someone mentioned the site over at the (amazingly slow and driving me crazy) Sock Wars forum, so I ordered some socks and tights off their UK website. They arrived this morning and are utterly and totally awesome! I can't wait to wear them (but I'm weird about wearing new things, I have to wash them first). I'll try to get some pictures of the mis-matched-ness later on :)
The other package was an Amazon marketplace one, containing Season 1 of my favourite German tv show, "Edel und Starck". I pretty much spend every Monday night when I was an undergrad watching it, and I can't wait to watch it again! I took the first DVD to the office, hoping to watch an episode at lunchtime (while working on the Jaywalkers). 

Alas, the Jaywalkers! They turned out way too small for the Boy so I'm going to have to keep them (they fit me perfectly). Shame, because he really liked the yarn, but there's no way I'll frog a perfectly nice sock just because it won't fit the intended recipient. He can wait for another pair. I'm about 3 stripes into the leg of sock 2.
I also desperately need to finish my mother's jumper, Caitlin. I messed up the colourwork on the sleeves (as in I misread my own chart and ended up with the wrong colours) :( I'm not sure when I'll find time to do it though: work is crazy at the moment (chapter due next week), and I seem to do nothing but sleep, read, write and eat (and possible make socks. maybe).