Now it’s Wednesday and I have yet more knitting progress to show, despite the update at the beginning of the week. I’ve chosen to target my knitting (more on that later!), setting the Slope Rib sweater aside for a few days in order to concentrate on the Lace Panel Sweater. As I’d anticipated, I finished the first sleeve on Monday and then I did pick up the good old Slope Rib and worked a few rows, but I had to admit to myself that my heart was still with my bonny blue sweater.

So I cast on the second sleeve and, after a marathon of knitting and Paul Temple audio plays, I’d finished the entire sleeve by bedtime, although I did stay up a little later than usual because I was so close to the cast-off. I don’t recommend working this obsessively on a piece of knitting; my hands have been a bit stiff as a result of it. However, I didn’t let that stop me from casting on for the back of the sweater on Tuesday afternoon and I’m already at the point where I have to start increasing up from the waist to the beginning of the armhole shaping. One bonus is that there is clearly going to be plenty of the blue wool to finish the jumper – why did I ever doubt it?

By now, the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that I’ve been referring to a mix of “Bonney” and “bonny” and, no, it’s not that I’m confused over the spelling. Today’s title comes to us courtesy of another bit of rather obscure 1970s BBC TV programming: “Target”. This cop drama was a vehicle for Patrick Mower – one of the UK’s dashingly handsome action-man leads along with the likes of Martin Shaw and Ian McShane. His character was Detective Superintendant Steve Hackett, the focus of the series. The ever-delightful Philip Madoc was Hackett’s boss, Detective Chief Superintendant Tate and the obligatory side-kick role was taken by Brendan Price as Detective Sergeant Frank Bonney. Simply reading down the list of actors who appeared in various episodes is a jaunt through all the household names of the period. From what I can recall, the episodes followed the usual format of detective serials at the time – bit of action, bit of cameraraderie, bit of rule-flouting, bit of bed-hopping. I found it all immensely enjoyable, much like “The Professionals” over on ITV which it was clearly competing with (although, for my money, I’ll take Philip Madoc over Gordon Jackson any day of the week). At the time it aired, I was working in a bank and this was one of the series that I used to chat about with my best workmate as we went through the unlocking routine of a morning.

Anyway, one line has always stuck with me down the years and that was when Hackett referred to his side-kick as “Bonney Blue-Eyes” and this has been on my mind a lot as I’ve worked with this wool. I must say it’s lucky that this series hasn’t made it onto YouTube (which only goes to prove how obscure it is) otherwise I’d have to watch it all the way through just to check the line actually did exist.

Right now I’m looking at my knitting and thinking that if I work exclusively on it, I could be wearing the jumper this time next week! And who will be the bonny blue-eyed girl then, I ask you?