GUEST POST! Catherine Anne's Opinions and Observations, Part 2! Which Craft...

Which Craft.

First off, I knit. I also sew, both by hand and machine, and have been known, in moments of hippy abandonment, to get out the crochet. Over the years my single-minded pursuit of the perfect big woolly jumper, or particular lace pattern has earned me withering scorn. “Knitting!!!’’ people shriek, ‘’urgh, that’s what GRANNIES do!!!’’. Except it isn’t now (well, not exclusively). Now it’s fashionable. Now it’s ‘in’. A casual trawl through the web can throw out any amount of bright young things clacking furiously away with the needles, and it’s even being recommended as a form of therapy (although that smacks a bit of institutionalised basket weaving to me). I should be happy. I should be skipping from one end of the yard to the other singing ‘knit one purl one tra lalalaaaaa’.

Instead, I find myself up against something I consider a bit sinister, if not outright rude. You see, I’m not the right kind of knitter. Quite who decides these things I’m not sure, but having engaged in a conversation with a bunch of ladies who’ve become converts to the noble art, I find that because I’m not knitting a cowl using kettle dyed recycled yak hair gleaned by hand from the dirt floors of weaving sheds in Peru I’m not ‘doing it right’. Unless I spend the equivalent of a month’s wages on rag yarn created in an artistic space by a vegan existentialist using his feet, I’m just playing at it. Forget that I’ve got a fantastic big Aran jumper on the go, that will not only keep me warm but looks rather spiffy as well - because it hasn’t been knitted by someone in a commune in gdansk it doesn’t count. I really REALLY like the idea that people are realising that they can make something beautiful by themselves, but I’m mogadored by the price, both financial and effort wise, that’s suddenly become the norm.

Our local library did (might still do for all I know) a “stitch and bitch’’ morning, where you could take your knitting (or whatever) and have a coffee and a natter with other creatives on the comfy sofas in the DVD section. I lasted one session, but was deemed unworthy as I was knitting a hottie cover using ‘just Aran’ - as in “eeww, it’s JUST ARAN’’ (pronounced with the same tone of voice that the queen might employ to say ‘eeww, it’s a Bolshevik’). I was happy to let that one go, but it dawned on me that my lack of roving woven from bat fur wasn’t going to cut it, so I left. I’m much more comfortable sitting cross legged on the sofa, cabling away like a demon whilst watching something lurid and horrific on TV (my woollies are known by whatever I was watching at the time, hence the CSI socks, or the Walking Dead hot water bottle cover). My current item will be known as the Lie To Me woollybeast owing to a bout of temporary insanity that has led me to binge watch Tim Roth.

Anything becoming fashionable automatically ups the price tag, so the current trend for knitting - or any other craft that grabs your fancy - whilst fab, is also likely to put people off after the first mad flush of convert-enthusiasm dies off, unless they realise that there are perfectly good wool shops out there, selling lovely yarn at prices that won’t induce a panic attack, and that knitting with rope is ok if that’s what you want to do (I’m not kidding. I know someone who’s trying to knit a hammock), but it’s not compulsory. Meanwhile me and my ‘just Aran’ will be over in the corner, going goggle eyed at the prices on Etsy for a three foot long scarf created from dryer fluff and twine.

GUEST POST! Catherine Anne's Opinions and Observations, Part 1!

Back when I was doing my Guest season a month or so ago, Catherine Anne and I both forgot that I asked her to write me something, and then the season petered out (both of the scheduled last people to post got busy and I felt a bit bad bothering them so I left it...in a quiet English manner).  Catherine Anne remembered, so became the third person.  Even better, she remembered and had actually written something. 

Catherine Anne is great.  She's a longtime Facebook friend that I'm hoping to meet at some stage (probably when Stanley and I eventually get off our arses and get married).  We met on a sort of love-in group for people who adored the Tudor Monastery/ Edwardian/Victorian/Wartime Farm programmes FB forum - a specifically we love Peter Ginn angle (most intelligent and gorgeous historian/archeologist).  She's really funny and has tidied up quite a number of my bad moods just by writing a very wry Facebook status.  Her friends keep telling her to make a book of them, or just, y'know, write a book with herself talking in it.  About whatever, doesn't matter, we love her voice. 

Anyway, she wrote me a small bit of Observations, and I'm hoping I can cajole her to keep at it, and periodically do me another one, whenever she fancies it.  Cos you're going to love her quiet witty voice too.  She'll make your day better.

***

Dreams of Futures Past

As I got up this morning, and stood in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil, I reflected that all was not as it should be. I was prone to a small bout of resentment and general discontent. I was, in short, still pissed off with Tomorrows World. Allow me to explain. When I was growing up in the 70's, at about the time that I realised there was more to life than Basil Brush and Playschool, I was fortunate enough to tune in to Tomorrows World. For an imagination already fired up on watching Dr Who, Star Trek and UFO, T.W. offered a tantalising glimpse of the giddy whirl that my future held.

Pocket calculators, digital watches ......... HOVERCRAFT!!!!!! ....... This is it (I thought back then), this IS the future.........this is what my life will be!! I'll rise to a fully automated house where everything is taken care of by a bit of quick programming, I’ll eat my delicious meals prepared in mere moments in the intelligent microwave, then I’ll don my matching silver bootees and cape and zoom off to work in my own personal HOVERCRAFT (as you can tell, my pre-teen mind sort of fixated on that point).  All manner of leisure activities will be available for my delectation, there'll be no such thing as dusting, and I’ll be mistress of my own fate.

Which brings me back to this morning.  Standing in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil. Raymond Baxter, Judith Hann and the rest of them LIED TO ME. Granted I’ve got a microwave, but I view it with the same sort of suspicion and distrust that the Spanish Inquisition employed when it was suggested that the earth revolves around the sun.  In the years that I’ve had it, I’ve probably spent more time boiling lemon water to CLEAN THE MICROWAVE than I have actually cooking food in it. I’ve got a few kitchen gadgets, but they're mostly manually operated (I’m still getting to grips with my Habitat Garlic Press - an item purchased on a whim whilst dallying with the idea of being cosmopolitan and 'edgy' back in the very early 80's).

I’ll be the first to admit that life's come on a bit since the seventies, which seemed to revolve around shortages and power cuts, with occasional trips to Rhyll (anyone from the potteries will get that last bit instantly) mingled with going to school looking as if I’d spent the night napping on a Van der Graaf generator because mum thought nylon bedding was soooooooo much more convenient than boring old cotton. But on the whole, Tomorrows World did for me. It gave me expectations and hope, a sort of hope that has since been crushed (after all, even the most creative imagination is stifled when facing the stark reality of either walking for miles in the rain or chancing the rancidly Bohemian atmosphere of the local bus service, BECAUSE PERSONAL HOVERCRAFT DO NOT FEATURE IN YOUR LIFE*).

There's nothing for it but to begrudgingly trudge on, occasionally muttering ''bloody Raymond Baxter'', and dealing with the harsh realisation that they're never going to actually build a food replicator, and it's time to start cooking lunch.

(*Yes, ok, look, I admit it. The personal hovercraft thing has sort of stuck with me all this time. and should my rarely purchased Euromills ticket ever prove to be a winner, it'll be the third thing I demand from my list (number 1 being Tom Jones to turn up at my local pub and sing 'What's New Pussycat', and number 2 a pet aardvaark called Gerald).