Famous teddies

My knitting has become legendary in the local area. A photograph I took last Christmas of my five teddies playing in the snow, now graces the window of the local wool shop. Rupert, Winnie, Paddington, Edward and Mrs Simpson have obviously been much admired because no less than three people have told me about their centre-stage appearance.

Buoyed by this acknowledgement of my skills – or maybe Fiona likes to show off the photograph to prove that against all odds, I became another of her success stories - I spent Sunday knitting a few more bottletop hats to take to Monday’s Clicking Needles.

“Oh dear,” said Petrina, when I proudly displayed my wee hats.

“What?” I asked anxiously. Wrong size? Wrong pattern? Politically incorrect colours?

“I’ll have to mail them. We already delivered ours. They were driven to Perth last week.”

I bit my tongue. After all, she did say the deadline was this coming Friday.

To make up for the extra cost of postage this will incur having missed the free lift, I offered to buy 22 tennis balls. The knitting ladies are making up Christmas boxes to go to Africa filled with useful items for children: spoons, pencils, mittens, notebooks, tissues, toothbrushes. There’s a list on the wall and everyone is asked to contribute. Marianne has made all the pairs of mittens.

“She must sit up all night knitting to get this lot done,” snorted Glenys.

Petrina called for hush.

“I have an exciting announcement to make,” she said, with a broad grin on her face.

“The local tourism board has just phoned to say that one of the hats that Theresa knitted has been adopted by Dougie McLean.”

There were oohs and aahs of admiration. This rather puts my teddies into perspective. No sign of them being adopted by one of Scotland’s most famous performers.

“How do you know it was one of my hats?” Theresa modestly asked.

“They said it was the one with earlobes,” said Petrina.

“Flaps,” said Theresa. “Yes, that would be mine.”

Petrina held up her hand for quiet.

“AND … the tourist board have asked that wherever he performs, Dougie takes a photo of someone wearing the hat and sends it back on a postcard!”

This is truly impressive. Theresa will have a famous hat!

But Petrina is not finished.

“They also want more hats from us. This time in autumn colours.”

“What for?” asked Glenys.

“They are making a tammy tree in a wheelbarrow.”

Yes, this is exactly what she said. A tammy tree in a wheelbarrow. Later I shall Google this to see if I can find out what a tammy tree actually is. I would have asked, but Petrina was keen, whilst she had a captive audience, to pass on intelligence she had received today about a telephone scam.

It was rather convoluted, but the crux of it seems that a con artist, purporting to be from the national telephone company, calls to say that one’s bill is overdue and the phone will be cut off instantly if payment is not made. Then he presses the mute button which makes the phone line seemingly go dead, so the receiver of course immediately pays up – to some bogus bank account in Eastern Europe. Or something along those lines, I got a bit lost in the fine detail.

“The thing to do is loudly blow a whistle down the phone. That works every time,” said Glenys.

Maureen agreed. “Quite the best answer. We used to get a lot of funny men phoning making rude comments in the old days. A whistle soon stops them.”

“I’ve never had any of those,” said Jean, sounding rather wistful. “I’ve only ever had salesmen trying to sell me things I don’t want.”

Petrina was sold a pup recently. A real pup – she’s a sprocker which Petrina tells us is a cross between a cocker spaniel and a springer spaniel.

She emails me to ask for a meeting about my project. I sense a whiff of nose-out-of-joint-itis. She says wants to debrief me on local sensitivities, give me background information and raise a particular concern. I decide my best response will be to listen gratefully and offer to consider all her points.

Minnie, the sprocker, an eight-week old cutie, has already taken up residence in her office. Her party tricks include carrying her plastic bowl in her mouth, and attempting to chew the tassles off my shoes.

So I sit, with my shoes in my lap, trying to look professional and unthreatening.

It is a good meeting. We nut out the issue that Petrina is concerned about, and decide upon a possible solution that will have certain advantages for her – as a result, her interest is piqued and she is very helpful. She gives me some excellent contacts and clarifies the local intricacies of doing business.

After an hour, Minnie is asleep and I put my shoes back on before leaving, with a promise to update Petrina on the results of my Monday evening meeting with the local businesses.

Though really, I doubt I need bother, the village tom toms will beat out the news long before I get to see her on Tuesday.