My parents have always disagreed on the subject of motion. Pops* believs in the importance of striding, hiking and hill-climbing whereas Bam** is a fan of trundling, bimbling and moseying. While noseying around quaint, ‘olde englishe shoppes’ is Bam’s idea of a good time, Pops would ultimately prefer to scale a dangerous mountain; all the better if there is a storm raging at the time.

I have thankfully inherited a little of both styles. I always loved wild places and that breathless, heart-thumping thrill of looking back on wet, stony, green vistas but I’ve learned that there is also something to be said for the joy of browsing strange towns and drinking cups of tea that last all afternoon.

Obviously at the moment the mountain-climbing is right out for me as is lots of trawling around in cramped and inaccessible ‘shoppes.’ Toes are kind of important for the goat-footed certainty that’s needed for a day up Snowdon, the Wrekin or any of the other mountain places I remember scampering about on as a small girl. Currently I’d be sure to lose my crutches in a river or sink them in a mudhole unwittingly. So for the immediate future I’ll concentrate on doing things that can be accomplished from a seated position, like knitting. Or non-strenuous standing activities, like posing in my knitting.

Knitting Mosey from Spring Knitty 2008 has given me inexpressable joy over the last couple of weeks. I’d like to congratulate Susan Power for addressing the dearth of satisfying legwarmer patterns previously in existence with this stunning addition to the Knitty archives. The pattern is lovely to knit; those trawling cables that meander and shift around the leg are just easy enough to remember, but not repetitive enough to ever get boring. Knitting these legwarmers is like taking a perfect stroll; you go for a while along one trajectory, then you change direction and the view shifts slightly. All the while, you are consistently enjoying the green pleasure of the sights around you. The title is perfectly chosen.

The yarn I used was decadent yarn bought from Socktopus at the UK Stitch’n’Bitch day back in November. The colourway is ‘Happy Forest’ and the yarn is dream in colour’s Classy which is a worsted weight yarn. So many things associated with hospital visits and having health-problems generally are about ‘making do’ and ‘managing’ that I consciously decided to enjoy some positive, contradictory luxury for myself with these lovely legwarmers. On a practical level I wanted to be able to conceal grubby bandages and such things beneath the rich, green-joy, and on a more emotional level, I wanted to feel as though I was attending to my sore ankles and feet in a nurturing way. I cast these on in hospital and, much to the amusement of everyone, kept all the associated notions and needles in the cardboard kidney-shaped tray the nurses gave me when I was feeling sick one night. Betsan of Stitchlinks said in a recent conversation that many Stitchlinks members take luxury yarn with them into hospital so that they associate their stay with a lovely knitting project rather than with surgery or pain. I can testify that this consciously self-distracting approach is very helpful. On the other hand, I’m not sure that staying up until 3am knitting on my last night in hospital aided my recovery… but the joy of the legwarmers is surely healing enough to counteract any negative effects of sleep-deprivation.

And besides, the legwarmers have pom-poms and how can anything with pom-poms not be in and of itself inherently good for you?

The Man’s youngest boy made me a lovely get well card with a bee on the front of it and the words ‘get well soon Bee-lix.’ I have various names in this family; Bee-lix, Feasel and Feerkat. Although these are sadly all cute, highly anthropomorphical creaturelike pseudonyms, I love them because I love bees, meerkats and weasels and am inspired by their various behaviours – or at least my interpretations of their various behaviours. While out photographing me in my newly knit Mosey legwarmers, The Man captured this fine fellow who provides much instruction on both industriousness and bimbling.

All that remains for my walking experience on this Earth to be fully satisfying is for my crutches to be adorned in a variation on the Mosey pattern. Similarly meandering cables and perhaps matching pom-poms would bring the ensemble together in a very pleasing way. I have some yarn left over for this purpose and the deadline for the end of The Missability Radio Show Knitted Walking Stick Cosy Competition Round #2 just ending plus my new crutches has put the notion of cosies firmly back into my mind. Thanks to everyone who entered the second round; details of the judging event shall be published on the website in due course. If anyone has a cosy but hasn’t sent it yet, there’s still time! Just email me to let me know I need to drive to Oxford and check the PO Box.

*My Dad is known variously as ‘Pops,’ ‘old man withers,’ ‘the old man of the hills/west,’ and sometimes ‘wild Bill.’
**My Mum is known as Bam for reasons I can’t really remember.