Week 382: Seam of Chalk
December 29, 2025
- I spent the week washing in essentially pure buxton mineral water. If you’ve only ever existed under the tyranny of hard water, you’ll never know how little shower gel you could be using. How smooth and shiny your hair and everybody you know’s hair could be.
- I grew up on a seam of chalk.
- For possibly the first time ever, I worked all the way through to the end of christmas eve. It was a pleasant sort of working, re-reading my notes from the first 3.5 weeks, a luxurious 1.5 hour 1:1 with my peer to bounce my emerging hypotheses off of him to see what comes back.
- For a while I’ve had a goal of knitting a pair of socks per year. The aim being that eventually I’ll own enough pairs of hand knitted socks that I’ll be able to wear them throughout the winter months. Last year I left 1.5 socks on a flight so that’s knocked my progress a bit but this year I’m back on it. What I want to also arrive at is a universal Alice Bartlett sock. One pattern that is perfect for me. This year I might have arrived at the dream sock. It’s got a folded cuff, 3x1 rib and a flap heal. At 72 stitches, it might be too big - I will have to wear them to find out. I added in some sporty stripes but once i’d knitted the whole thing I decided it was too much so I’m going to sew a new cuff and graft it to the first sock.
- A christmas miracle: My 9 year old crassula ovata has flowered.
- Christmas happened on Thursday, a very good day.
- On boxing day I said to chaz “hey let’s play a joke on everyone, let’s you and me say we’re going out for a short walk and then secretly walk all the way to White Nancy and then everyone will be really surprised”. Chaz, an original prankster just like me, was well up for this. On our walk I scratched a big cow’s head and it licked my arm and then I let a farm cat stand on my shoes and it licked my trouser leg with great enthusiasm.
- I finished Pirenesi. It was a great and unusual book. Thanks Tom and Denise for sharing your enjoyment.
- On Sunday we went to York to see the train museum (and very good Wonder Lab). I can’t get over how amazing and simple the windy pipes thing is. Just a wall full of bendy tubes and some scarves.