Summer and Winter in Spring

The last week in March had some of the nicest weather I've experienced in Scotland. Scotland was setting record Highs for temperatures in March and nearby Aberdeen was the hottest place in the UK for a couple of days running at almost 23C (73F) and Inverness was not far behind. Chris and I spent the weekend outside: we went for walks (in shorts! Without sweaters!), we cleaned the patio, we had a bbq, drank Pimm's and Lemonade, and had lunch in the garden.

Daffodils were in full bloom, we opened all the windows, and I lived in sun dresses for three days. It was everything you could hope for in a Scottish summer and more! So a week later it snowed:

I had to dig out our daffodils and a week later they're still half horizontal. From shorts to three layers of wool almost overnight. Clearly we'd had our summer and it was back to winter, except an oddly bright winter with the almost 14 hours of daylight we're currently getting. On the plus side, when I saw that thermal underwear was half price, I was in the right mindset to buy a few pairs, and I got to wear my newest knitwear, my Blueberry Scowl.

This was the final cowl in Liz Abinante's Great Cowl KAL, a challenge to knit five cowls in 50 days. The above picture of my cowl being modelled by an uncharacteristically affectionate Libby (she sat on my lap, trapping me on the sofa, just as I finished sewing on the buttons) was taken the evening of the final deadline and it was a near thing finishing at all.

I'd signed up for the KAL in the days between returning from our honeymoon and learning that my father was dying. When I flew out for the funeral I had just cast on the third cowl and I packed appropriate yarn and needles for the fourth cowl which would start while I was in California (along with two sock projects). The last cowl, the Blueberry Scowl started around the time I flew back and was the only project for which I didn't already have a suitable yarn. I checked with my LYS (local yarn shop) but Worsted Weight, which falls between Aran and DK (double knitting) isn't readily available in the UK for whatever reason and my LYS isn't known for its extensive selection, and there was nothing suitable. I searched online and eventually found a suitable yarn on Etsy and ordered it. We were a week into the three week deadline, but I had finished with time to spare on the other projects so I wasn't terribly worried until another week went by and there was no sight of my yarn. It turns out the dyer I'd purchased it from had gone out of town for the week and hadn't had a chance to post it before leaving. Gah!

I kept waffling about what to do: on one hand I had other projects, lovely projects, crying out to be knit; on the other hand the Blueberry Scowl was my favourite looking pattern going in; on the first hand, that meant I had the prize I wanted; but on the second hand to have come so far and give up at the end; I'd get around to knitting it eventually, right?; or would I get distracted and leave the yarn and pattern to languish like so many projects before them? What to do?

Obviously I knit the Scowl, but not as written and not with the yarn I'd ordered. The day it arrived I CO with the half skein of Malabrigo Worsted - which is actually an Aran - I had leftover from the mitten and hat KAL on G+ (which, now that I think about I never told you about. Um, oops?). Not enough yarn to knit a full-sized Scowl but enough to knit one that would just fit around my neck and button snugly. Just before going to bed, I realized that I'd not actually read the pattern, just skimmed it, and left off a section so I frogged it and started over now with only 3 days to go. Good thing we already know how the story ends or this would be getting tense, right?

Yes, friends, I finished the cowl and got a picture of it draped across Princess (I wanted it buttoned around her torso but she made it clear she doesn't like me that much) and submitted with hours to spare. And then it snowed and I even got to wear it! Unfortunately my buttons are too small so it won't much stay buttoned, but that's okay because I can replace them with larger buttons when I find the right ones.

And the rewards for finishing? For completing the Blueberry Scowl I got another cowl, the Like Honey Cowl, and for completing all five cowls I get to beta test Liz's (after this I feel like we're on a first name basis, Liz and I) new Members' site with access to future patterns. All of that in addition, of course, to the free patterns and beautiful cowls that made up the competition.

Burns Night

Yesterday was the anniversary of Robert Burns' birth, which is a bit of an unofficial holiday in Scotland, celebrated with the "traditional" dinner of haggis, neeps (turnips), and tatties (potatoes), and of course the reading of such poems as the Address to a Haggis, Auld Lang Syne, and the Selkirk Grace:

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

Some friends of ours tweeted that they were hosting a Burns night with regular and veggie haggises and extra seats around the table (though these turned out to be on the sofa) and would anyone care to join them. My response was somewhat more enthusiastic than Chris' as I think he more accurately judged how tired we'd be our first full day home, but I fluttered my lashes and he replied that we'd be attending.

The food was wonderful - I had the veggie haggis as I think sheep are for wool, not eating, and Chris got the regular stuff which he continues to claim to enjoy - and the company moreso. The 13-year-old twin daughters of the house led a protracted game of "I Spy" that got squirrelier and squirrelier as the night progressed. My objects included "slacks", "mortar", "plinth", "lintel", and "soda" occasionally counting on my American words to confound the Brits. The curtain ties were the object in question twice, first as "tie backs" and later as "sashes" and at various times we debated whether you could see things such as photosynthesis or light (I reckon yes and no, respectively). It also brought us a variety of philosophical conversations:
"What would you call those?"
"Daisies."
"They're not daisies!"
"You didn't ask what they are, you asked what I would call them."

Poor Chris spent most of the evening dozing on the sofa or quietly playing with his phone, as is his wont around crowds. I was asked to declaim a poem, specifically "Lines on the Fall of Fyers Near Loch-Ness" which was a bit of a gimmie, being mostly in "English" and not Scots:

Among the heathy hills and ragged woods
The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods;
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds,
Where, thro' a shapeless breach, his stream resounds.
As high in air the bursting torrents flow,
As deep recoiling surges foam below,
Prone down the rock the whitening sheet descends,
And viewles Echo's ear, astonished, rends.
Dim-seen, through rising mists and ceaseless show'rs,
The hoary cavern, wide surrounding lours:
Still thro' the gap the struggling river toils,
And still, below, the horrid cauldron boils