Megan Knight

Thirty-one: moss, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is a jersey I knit, in moss stitch. I knit a lot, it’s among my many anachronistic skills. I’d make a good peasant farmwife, or at least I would have before the arthritis hit.

I enjoy knitting – I can do it while doing other things, like watching TV, and it produces a feeling of accomplishment. The problem is that I’m seldom as enthusiastic about the end product as I am about the process. Knitting produces a kind of cook’s syndrome in me: by the time it’s done I’m sick of it and never want to see it again. Last year, however, I knit three baby blankets, and they were all loads of fun to do, and wonderful, because I don’t have to see them again.

Thirty: Vision, originally uploaded by meganknight.

For my entire adult life, my glasses have been the single most expensive item of attire or adornment I own. These latest pair cost £400 for the lenses alone, and that was at a relatively cheap optometrist.

My vision is not good, and it’s getting worse: I already find I can’t focus on things too close to me, or too far, and that my eyes get tired from reading too much.

I was cleaning them, and I noticed the droplets, so I decided to play around with the image. Can you tell I really want a macro lens?

Twenty-nine: Chappies, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Chappies is a brand of South African chewing gum, sold by the piece on the counter of “kaffies” and “spaza shops”, what in the US would be called corner stores. Each piece of chappies is one and a half centimeter square, half a centimeter thick, like a little terracotta tile, and traditonally they are pink, violently fruit-flavoured and wrapped in a yellow wrapper like a little present. They use to be four for a penny, and were the only kind of chewing gum we were allowed. I suspect they’re considerably more expensive now, and they come in different flavours and colours. The inside of the chappies wrapper had trivia ‘did you know’ questions on it.

This is part of a mobile I bought from a shop in Grahamstown that specialises in recycled crafts – it’s a string of five cranes made of chappies wrappers in different colours, and it hangs from a shelf in my study. Yellow is the iconic chappies wrapper colour.

Twenty-eight: Brulee, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I made creme brulee tonight. We accidentally ordered too much from the delivery people, and are drowning in milk and eggs, so creme brulee made sense. Well, some sense, at least. It only uses a cup of milk for two servings, and although it has four egg yolks that leaves me with the question of what to do with four egg whites.

It didn’t work that well, I’m afraid. I was doing supper as well, and lost track of time. I also didn’t have enough time to chill it properly before doing the brulee. It still tastes lovely, though.

Now, what to do with the whites?

Twenty-seven: sunset, originally uploaded by meganknight.

It’s staying lighter later, and today for the first time I managed to be on my way home before it actually got dark.

This is just off of Plungie, again, and the houses are typical northern terraces, all stuck together. It’s been clear and cold, and the sky is full of jet trails – I suspect from planes heading over the pole to North America: several years ago, flying from London to Vancouver we flew over this part of the world, never suspecting we’d end up living here.

Twenty-six: Plungie, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Plungington Road (known as Plungie, with a classic northern long ‘u’), is one of the main north-south strips in Preston, running from the university campus up the hill to Blackpool road, which used to be the northern limit of the town. Plungie is not a great neighbourhood, consisting mainly of charity shops, convenience stores, takeaways, discount booze and pubs. The original houses are classic northern terraces, with front doors right on the street and dense back alleys. Now, being so close to campus, there are loads of students as well as the original inhabitants.

This is the Plunginton Tavern, a truly handsome building, but unfortunately for rent. People seem to prefer the discount booze mart two blocks up, and judging from the broken glass, just do their drinking in the street.

Twenty-five: shooting star, originally uploaded by meganknight.

We get a lot of jet trails here, I’m not sure why. They show up during crisp clear winter days, especially.

This was early this morning: I went out while the kettle was boiling, and there was a plump little magpie sitting in the tree. By the time I went upstairs and fetched my camera, he had flown away, but the jet trail had showed up, so I took that instead. A woman leaving the house two doors down glared at me as I went back inside with my camera, mistrusting my motives.

Twenty-three: shawl, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I have a large collection of shawls, throws, wraps and scarves, acquired all over the world. They’re my last concession to my hippy lefty roots: I dress pretty boringly otherwise, so I the wraps are sometimes the only colour on display.

This shawl is probably the largest I own, it’s almost too large to be useful. I bought it in Guangzhou, and it wasn’t cheap. I was recently cornered by someone at a conference who insisted it was made in Pakistan, that she imported shawls from Pakistan and she knew it was Pakistani. She was deeply offended that I had bought it in China, and I felt bad for having done so, but there was little I could do about it.