Wednesday 6th November - oh-oh, more books...

A friend sent me this poem by C S Lewis, NOT Lewis J R R TOLKEIN of course!  Thanks to teawithtolkein for the correction in the comments below. I'm sure many of you know the poem already. A few years ago I challenged myself to learn a short poem every week. This was one of the poems.

 I didn't keep it up for long, as I found after three or four weeks I had forgotten most of the poems I had learned earlier. But I might try again, maybe allowing a month for each poem! Anyway, here it is;

          All that is gold does not glitter,

          Not all those who wander are lost;

          The old that is strong does not wither,

          Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

But did you know it has a second verse?

          From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

          A light from the shadows shall spring;

          Renewed shall be blade that was broken, 

          When crownless again shall be King.

It sounds as though it comes from 'The Lord of the Rings'. I love the mysterious sound of it.

This has sent me on a hunt for another similar poem I read in a hospital waiting toom many many years ago. There was a scheme to put poetry booklets in hospitals. It's quite difficult to find a poem when you can't remember any particular lines from it, or the title, or the poet.

I have put in motion a solution by.... ordering a couple of anthologies as I am sure it is in one of them! I used to have these books, but am pretty certain I passed them on to friends. 

Ah yes. 'Four for the price' of three strikes again. If the anthologies are in good condition they will might become Christmas presents...

Ang is busy knitting for half an hour every day in support of the Bone Cancer Research Trust. A very good cause; a young girl at our church had bone cancer in her leg. For a while it was thought that they would need to amputate at the knee; poor girl,  she was only 9 or 10, but they managed to save it and do a replacement knee opration instead. She still had to undergo massively debilitating chemotherapy, and then, several years later, a second knee replacement as she grew taller. I'm not doing the sponsored knit, but it's not too late to sponsor Ang if you follow the link above to her blog. 

I am trying to knit some of my Adult Surprise Jacket most days.

It is the weirdest shape; here is a sweet little youtube showing how to origami the finished knitting into a jacket.

I'm heading at slow speed to the moment of maximum despair before the final push;

I think (but I'm not sure at this stage) that the blue lines will become the button bands, and the red dots, where the needle points emerge from all the knitting, are where I will be keeping some stitches for the front neck shaping. 'Slow speed'? I've currently got over 200 stitches on the needle, each row takes me about 20 minutes to knit, and I need to continue increasing by 4 stitches every other row for 8 more rows. Then I shall reserve 16 stitches either side for the neck (are you still with me?) and contine with the increases on the remaining stitches. 

Next comes the scary bit; I think I then pick up stitches from one neck edge, down the front to make button bands, and then... and then......... and then................... well, I've studied the diagram and read the instructions about a dozen times, and I'm hoping it everything will become clear. Heaven know how many stitches I will end up with, but I'm hoping I will be able to cram them all on the needle  - I have checked that far as I can...

It's a good job there will only be a few rows of the monster number of stitches.