Beamish Boy

So, Richard is home from university for the summer! This is extremely good news for me, as he spends a fair bit of time here, thus ensuring I get intelligent conversation, terrible jokes and an unlimited supply of digital photography by someone who really knows how to take digital photos (ie, not me).

(I hasten to add that I get this all year from his father, too - but as he works three jobs, we don't spend as much time together as Richard and I do.)

I can't remember when I started calling him the Beamish Boy. As I expect you realise, the phrase is from 'Jabberwocky', and thus is meant to be gibberish - but it suits him. He has a wonderful attitude to life.

He also, bless him, is fascinated by the mechanics of knitting. Although he has no desire to knit himself, he loves to watch me knit, and to work out how stitches and patterns are formed. He also receives knitted items with great delight, which makes him the perfect recipient.

A few days ago, I was sketching out a new design, which has rather unusually-shaped pattern pieces, and I couldn't work out in my head quite how to draw them in 2D. He wandered off with paper and sticky tape, and returned with a miniature model of the thing, which I then cut apart to see the shape of the constituent parts. How brilliant is that?

So, in other words, I am boasting. I am also explaining why he is the only person for whom I would knit a 10-foot long Doctor Who scarf in double-knit merino in a heatwave.....