Yarn ball tattoo on a hand

The jumper for Tom's boy came off the needles on Tuesday, and I held it up to the window the way Mum used to, checking for daylight through the stitches. Nothing got through. Twelve rows of cable, a moss stitch collar you said looked fussy, and a wool so white the kitchen light went blue in it. I have wound the last of the ball back into its paper sleeve and put it in the drawer with the pattern card, because I cannot think what else to do with it.

You will say I should have let the boy pick the colour. He would have picked orange, and I would have been right to refuse. Anyway, the odd thing is what happened on the bus back from Hexham. A woman two seats along had a carrier bag on her knee with a ball of grey yarn spilling out of it, and the yarn ran all the way down the aisle, under the feet of a man asleep with his mouth open, and she didn't notice. I picked up the end and followed it to her, and by the time I reached her I had wound three metres onto my finger.

She said keep it. She said her gran had knitted at a bus shelter every Thursday for forty years and never once finished anything, and that the unfinished bits were the point. I didn't understand her, and I still don't, but I have the grey wool in my coat pocket now, and tonight I am casting on a hat for nobody in particular.

Love, Eileen