I get a little warm in my heart when I think of winter
– Tori Amos, Winter, 1992
Took a flying visit to Tasnarnia at the weekend to see about some more dental work. This may seem a little extreme, unless you appreciate my pathological suspicion of the dental profession developed from a species of practical aversion therapy (common to many people 35 and older who remember when dentists used to hurt). I trust Dr W with the kind of fierce loyalty born of a lifetime of distrust.
Anyway, dentist aside, it was a lovely weekend. Caught up with just enough familiar faces (but not too many). The winter in Slobart was, if no better, then certainly no worse than Can’tberra – clear skies, relatively mild days. Just enough to get you rugged up without being bogged down by excessive layers.
Talking about layers, though, there was something new that I hadn’t seen in Slobart before.
I turned a corner near Parliament House, and there were these bike racks – clothed for winter.
Some canny knitter had dressed the steel semicircles with a kind of legwarmer. Rackwarmer. Pipewarmer? The mind boggles.
As you can see the knitting is of pretty reasonable quality – involving patterns and alternating colours – and all neatly sown in place. But no sign of who perpetrated the act, or why.
Just down the road the guerrilla knitters had struck again. This time they’d taken to the statue of Douglas Mawson and his dogs at Constitution Dock. Again, all the pieces were made to fit and sown in place neatly. The pink legwarmers are a joy. And the dogs were not forgotten; one had matching legwarmers, the other a vest.
In fact, one wonders whether if Sir Doug had been rigged up with this gear perhaps he wouldn’t have been reduced to making a meal of the huskies quite so early on. Bad thought, must scratch out later.
Apparantly there was some press speculation about a week ago that it could have been part of the Midwinter Festival, but festival organisers were reportedly as bemused as anyone.
So the pretty statements remain, a colourful amalgam of dagginess and subversion but, like so much graffiti, a mystery to passers-by.
The guerrilla knitters roam free and anonymous – for now.
The Berra Circular 