rain on meeeheee

How much rain is there up there? The Inuit reputedly have many different words for snow and at this rate, we Celts are going to have to invent a whole new vocabulary to cope with our new, increased levels of precipitation. Right now, we're having 'desprain' - the kind of rain that falls at the end of a summer during which skies have been unremittingly grey and swollen. Desprain is a despairing kind of rain, falling on the beaten and subdued heads of a population who have suffered much and are starting to rust.

Yesterday we had 'p'sain' also known as 'p'saindownagain'. The shorter form is in more common usage, but can sound a bit oathish. However, oaths are forgivable and singularly appropriate, given the current weather. More wetness and I will take to shouting at the sky in a fashion which will earn me few friends but possibly garner a free fitting for a khaki jacket which does up the back with long tapes.

Oh, sigh. Summer of broken promise. Summer of limping feebleness. Wester Ross was beautiful, but cold, windy and wettish. We stayed in a tiny log cabin right on the machair beside an exquisite beach, but it was way too cold to swim, so we went for walks as long as my pathetic foot could manage. Ten miles was the best, but taken at a pace which did little in the way of mood-elevation or cardiovascular improvement. We cycled a little ( I had three flat tyres - I mean, friends and neighbours, it's hard not to feel picked on under such assaults from the god of small discouragements...) and I spent rather too many nights awake and thinking dark thoughts in the complete blackness. 

My current bleakness may be a passing phase, it may be a sane response to the mess our world is in, or it may just be me trying to fight off the greys which descend to engulf me from time to time. Or all three. Or perhaps, having come to the end of two all-consuming knitting projects, I'm now in something akin to knitter's limbo. 

Sweater is finished ( sleeves were indeed unpicked and re-sewn in the front seat of a car hurtling up to Inverness on the first morning of our holiday, and worn one scant hour later by my delighted daughter. We had to buy provisions for our week in Wester Ross, and thus, we found ourselves parked outside what appeared to be the biggest Tesco supermarket in the Western Hemisphere. Oh, joy. There we were, blinking like a family of don't-get-out-much moles in the entrance to this shiny, glittering consumer hell and wondering where to begin or whether to simply lie down in the car park and sob.  As a daughter-location-device, the new sweater performed admirably. As I trawled the vegetable section, I could see the sweater out of the corner of my eye, dazzling in its primary colours, clashing so wildly it made my eyeballs sing. Subtle, it ain't. 

Shawl is twenty double crochet stitches from completion. Don't know if I can bring myself to do it. The anti-climax of finishing might be my personal tipping point, and like some completed Munro-bagger, I'll have to begin all over again. I think my next epic has to be a huge burly, manly thing for Him Outdoors. Dark blue, tweedy and probably so heavy it'll bring him to his knees every time he slips it over his head, it'll probably bring me to my knees financially when I buy the yarn. In the meantime, I'm knitting squares of denim yarn as part of the ongoing picnic blanket project which is my bastardized version of a picnic blanket from 'A Book of Blankets to Knit During the Dark Teatime of Your Soul' possibly subtitled 'Pointless Projects You'll Never Finish But Which Stop You From Reacquainting Yourself With Your Past In Which Tobacco Featured Heavily'. 

Rowan's denim yarn is beautiful - pleasing to handle, cool to work with in the summer ( oh, how we laffed) and crisp in its stitch detail, especially after knitting with kidsilk haze for the past few months. Last year I managed nine squares of a ninety square picnic blanket before hurling the lot into a shoebox  and putting it out of sight so that its uncompleted state wouldn't serve as another thing to beat myself up with. This year, I've managed to knit five. A grand total of fourteen squares out of ninety does not a picnic blanket make. Like I said, it's an ongoing project.