Hat owner

I am the proud owner of a beautiful, although somewhat erratically knitted, new hat.

It is without question the nicest hat I have ever owned.

There are one or two irregularities about it, such as some gappy stitches where it turned out to be really difficult to knit round and round in circles on four needles all at once, and two completely unmatching rows where I didn’t realise that it was different doing stockinette stitch on round and round needles from on the normal kind. To my mind these are just personal touches that give my lovely hat a quality and character all of its own.

I have been wearing it ever since the moment of the last stitch, and it is gorgeously warm and soft and fits perfectly over my ears. I keep just reaching up to my head and stroking its beautiful Mongolian goat fleece texture, it is making me feel very contented indeed. I have got a lovely new grey hat, and the world is a good place.

It is such a splendid feeling that I would like to knit lots more hats and give them as presents to people to make them feel happy as well, and asked Mark if perhaps he would like one, but he declined as he has got a nice flat cap and is happy already. Maybe Number One Daughter would like a lumpy goat wool hat for Christmas, I will have to ask her.

Talking of Number One Daughter, I had a post on Facebook today from somebody who explained to me that she was the fittest woman in the British military. I was very proud about this as I am not even the fittest person in our house, not if the children are home anyway. I wondered if I should highlight it for Number Two Daughter who appears to have retired from Japan to the Middle East where I discovered, again via Facebook and to my amusement, that she was nursing a terrible hangover.

I am going to pick my third daughter up from school tomorrow, at least I think it is tomorrow, being Saturday, please somebody ring me up urgently if you know something that I clearly don’t.

I am not in the least looking forward to this because we have got a long night at work tonight, and somehow I have got to organise myself into being in York by eleven in the morning, looking polished and middle class, to attend a service in Chapel, a parents’ lunch, and then a meeting with all of her teachers.

I am going to have to be civilised and sensible and pay proper attention to everything everybody says to me, not spill the lunch down my shirt, and not yawn. It is going to be a huge effort, and to top it all I am going to have to go straight back out to work when I get home, because it is Saturday night and we will be busy

I am always mildly anxious about parent teacher encounters, because inevitably I am relying on information which has originated with my offspring, and there is huge margin for error involved. There was one unfortunate but memorable parents’ meeting at Number Two Daughter’s school where I discovered only on our meeting that the PE teacher was not, in fact, called Miss McLesbian after all.

I had thought I might get ahead with some bonus sleep today, but got distracted, first by a visitor, which was nice, and then by doing house things, which, when I think about it, was also nice. In any case I have discovered that it is not at all easy to bank sleep in advance, a bit like a credit card, you can’t give them cash when you find yourself a bit flush to compensate in advance for future moments of extravagant recklessness.

Despite this I am looking forward to seeing Lucy very much indeed, and mildly concerned in case it turns out that we have got to see Oliver as well, as his school nurse phoned me up last night to tell me that he was suffering from a mysterious vomiting ailment and was in the San.

We were in agreement that she was a better person than I am to be caring for a vomiting child, since she is not also trying to drive a taxi, and in any case he wants to stay at school because of not missing the senior play which is on tonight.

I have telephoned a couple of times to express maternal concern, and been told that if he gets any worse somebody will call me. I am fervently hoping that this does not happen and that he bounces back to good health with his usual eagerness, because I have already got enough to do to occupy most of tomorrow, and also there are a lot of people in the Lake District, and I am trying to earn some money.

I shall wear my new hat to go tomorrow.