On 6 September 2021 I wrote
Cape logo. To celebrate Mum’s life in South Africa.
When I was young, South Africa still had apartheid. Nelson Mandela was still imprisoned. Steve Biko died from injuries sustained while in police custody. South African goods were boycotted by many in this country. But Mum always looked out for the Cape logo, and we had apples from the Cape in our fruit bowl. At Christmas a whole wooden crate of South African peaches would arrive by freight from Gran and Grandpa in South Africa. Mum’s childhood was on a South African fruit farm, and she wanted to continue to support those farms. I remember a sense of unease, but ate those delicious apples and peaches.
Bonus pictures today are of Mum in the 1950s at her flat in London, on South Kinnerton Street. She lived there when she worked for Aquascutum, working up the designs for their chief designer. One day she was invited out to lunch (at Claridge’s I think) by an elderly distant cousin. Mum wore a gorgeous tweed coat. But the cousin insisted that one does not wear tweed for lunch in London and made Mum change into a tatty old black coat. Different times, eh?
The other annual gift we used to receive each year, just before Christmas I think, was a bunch of flowers. As I think about it now, it seems such a miracle – this long cardboard box would arrive, just the perfect length to be used as a box for storing knitting needles once it was emptied of the contents.
And the contents were stems of something that resembled long asparagus. Mum would carefully remove each stem from the box, check it over, cut off the bottom half inch and then pop it into a big crystal glass vase. A couple of days later the asparagus had transformed into creamy white blossoms of chincherinchees, which we always pronounced chinkericheese. Back in the early 70s they were such an exotic to have in the house, especially around Christmas, when mostly all you could get was a poinsettia in a pot and some sprigs of holly.
I’ve started moving some stuff to Mum’s house, in anticipation of us moving there later this year … I thought I had been clever and had only moved things I wouldn’t need in the meantime – but now that I want to take a picture of the old chincerinchees box still full of knitting needles, I realise it’s 100 miles away so you’ll have to wait for that picture. I have already regretted taking the jeely pan down there, and also the crate of Jamieson’s Spindrift Shetland wool, which is just the perfect thing for knitting colourwork, and is essential in my 100 Days Project for 2023.
My idea for this year’s 100 Days Project was to play with colour in knitting, to get more confident in choosing my own colours and making designs. The first third of the 100 days has involved making a cowl out of what I call Carrick Shore Colours – though once I got half way around I realised that I was about to run out of the paler toned background colours (Dewdrop and Granite, if you’re interested) so the second half uses the darker tones of Blue Lovat and Wren for the background shades – this turns out to be a happy solution to running out of the pale colours – it gave me the opportunity to play with different colourways, and also the cowl now has a light and a dark half, which might work sartorially?
I am on the last day of that first cowl, and realise I need to quickly decide if I am going to make another cowl, or Other Things. I have a feeling it might be Other Things. We’ll see. After all, it can be Other Things for a while and then another cowl for the final month or so.
***
Can I ask you a small favour? Could you please click here and vote for me, Lois Wolffe. The Smock has been shortlisted for an Award and it would mean the world to me if you voted for it.
Mostly on this blog I write about trying to care for Mum as she developed dementia, which nearly broke me on a number of occasions. Gentle meditative stitching her old Fisherman’s Smock probably saved me as I let everything go to concentrate on those tiny stitches. If you want to read more about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation.
Finally, if this has moved you, I would really appreciate it if you made a donation towards Alzheimer Scotland. They’re doing stuff that makes living with this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.
***
Shewolfinthevalley 
One Response to “Not boycotting”