Remembrance Day was a big deal. The Didsbury Village Women's Institute had been knitting and crocheting red poppies for weeks to make a wreath, and I'm sorry to say I contributed zero. They were on lapels and lampshades, the kids both made them in school. An 11am meeting on Tuesday started late so everyone could do their two minutes of silence.

As with Bonfire Night, the date falling midweek caused events to spread. I went to the Elizabeth Gaskell House on Sunday and they attributed lower than normal attendance to Remembrance Day events. Given that the EGH passed through a few hands, briefly serving as an international student dorm, before becoming a museum, it is in pretty good shape. You can even leaf through her books, although I was afraid to touch anything because my hand was covered with ointment after I burned myself trying to invert the Aeropress (why? It doesn't matter why, just don't do it). I took a picture of exactly one thing in the home of this literary icon, and it was of her closet. Specifically, her shawls.

I'll spare you the specifics but these shawls, particularly the white one on the left, brought out some deep textile geekery. My grandmother had acres of shawls accumulated over many trips to India, and as much as she was drawn to them she had zero occasion to use them. If she had been a pharoah we could have mummified her in them. When we were cleaning out her closet, my mom or I would shove one into my grandfather's hands so he could tell us the fiber content and he would say "Cotton silk blend" or "There's rayon in that, give away" or "Handwoven, can't get this today at any price!". Anyway, EG had a good eye. The black and white striped thing above the shawls was a bonnet, can you imagine the figure you would cut!

When I got to the house, I made it about six minutes into the welcoming spiel before asking if the monthly used book sale was still happening. Sadly canceled due to Christmas prep, but the baseline selection in their gift shop was pretty good. In the tea shop where I was eating my Bakewell tart there were two other patrons, apparently strangers. One of them was knitting and they were talking about yarn stores that have good parking. There were actually three if you count the knitter's teenaged daughter, who looked like her mom getting into conversations about looms with random people was a routine occurance to be tolerated. I think the museum should be exploiting the likelihood that the Venn diagram between Gaskellheads and yarnheads is basically a circle. My £9 ticket was good for a year so when that used book blowout happens I will be back.