From the Archives..

It’s a mark of how profound the challenges were that people faced during the COVID19 pandemic that it’s still a daily reference point for the stories we tell, of how things have been since, or the way things were before.

Things changed and many of those changes remain a part of the way we live now.

One of them is this newsletter. I began writing it in its current form in July 2020, as a way of trying to get back some of the connectedness with all of you, that got lost when we went into lockdown. I started by collecting and re-telling stories from the knitters who could no longer come to the shop, and as I wrote I discovered that the voice of this lonely chatterbox with no customers to talk to anymore, could express itself in a different way. Writing became a part of the rhythm of my week, as I sat down to explore or unpuzzle something which had been tickling me for a while.

And so when we were finally able to re-open the shop properly and everyone started to come back again, it didn’t occur to me to stop writing. The stories had woven themselves into the way the shop had become and I could no sooner stop telling them, than change the name of the shop.

But now a new project for this story-teller is afoot, one which is hungrily eating into the thing this newsletter depends on most: Time. In a few months I will be able to explain what’s coming, but for the time being, I am here to beg your patience and borrow some time: Instead of writing new posts, for the next couple of months, I will take you on a weekly trip into the Wild and Woolly stories archive. Each week I will select a favourite old story to re-post. I also warmly invite you all to send me any requests for posts you have fond memories of.

Let’s begin with a journey made during one of the brief periods of loosening of lockdown restrictions during the summer of 2020..

Fortunately.. Unfortunately..

First posted on 29 August 2020

It was the Thursday before going away, and the Unfortunately.. Fortunately.. game started playing out in real life.

Unfortunately the postman arrived at the shop early and Vi didn’t manage to get all the parcels into the sack. One was left over. Fortunately it was a Norfolk postcode Melton Constable address, which happened to be exactly where I was headed on holiday the following Saturday. Unfortunately Google Maps didn’t recognise the address. Fortunately we found an old Ordnance Survey map which showed the road and it was absolutely en route to our destination!

So the left-behind parcel was tied securely with the shop’s red string, packed into my cycle panier on top of knitting and holiday clothes. The weather was in our favour, the hills not so much, so this knitter was feeling pretty saddle sore and triumphant when 23 miles of peddalling later, she spotted a gate with the house name and dropped off the parcel. ‘Are you the courier?’ a Norfolk accented voice called out after me.

‘No, it’s from me, from my shop.’ 

‘Where’s your shop?’ called out the voice, sounding increasingly baffled.

‘East London’, I said. ‘Enjoy the wool!’, and got back onto my bike for the final 10 miles to the coast and to settle into the summer holiday I’d been longing for.

One of the more unexpected joys about reaching Blakeney was discovering the absence of any wifi or phone signal. Emails could only come in at random moments of connectedness, sitting in sand dunes, waiting in the fish and chip queue, and walking along coastal paths, which is where I was some days later when I found the message from AL..

 “I have to say I was somewhat blown away by the fact that you hand-delivered my order… we have been shielding since March and have got into the habit of being cautious of unknown visitors… did you cycle all the way from London… are you holidaying in Blakeney? ..Your’s was the only place that had a choice of colours for the Guernsey wool, nearly everywhere else is out of stock. ..I knit all sorts of things but last week came across a pattern for knitted herring, produced by the Time & Tide Museum at Great Yarmouth. I fell in love with them so just had to find the wool to make them my next project. “

Unfortunately online shopping  means that nowadays we miss out on so many magical encounters with unexpectedly kindred spirited knitters. Fortunately unexpectedly kindred spirited knitters know how to use the internet to reclaim some of those moments. It was just the reminder I needed (or perhaps we both did) that even when you buy your wool online, it’s still being packed and sent out by one knitter in the hope that it reaches another knitter with joy.