When I found my way to the wool aisle in Spotlight, (In Australia), two older ladies were huddled over the display of knitting needles on offer.

`That’s a 10 there’ said the younger one; a short, dumply little woman with a round, pleasant face.

`I need a 10 and a 12.’  The older lady’s finger wavered between the 3’s and the 3.25’s.  Or would it be that one, do you think?’  she looked over at her friend, her finger now gravitating to the 3.5. The needles were all lined up neatly behind each other on the display.

I understood their predicament immediately. If you’re older than about 50, you grew up knitting with needles measured in the Imperial gauge.  Then, we went metric and needles were measured in millimetres. Soo… 3.5mm etc. The US have a different sizing again, just to add to the confusion.

The older lady was thin, with a slightly crouched frame and tightly permed hair. `It’s confusing, isn’t it’ I ventured.

`I need a size 10 for the basque and a size 12 for the rest.  I’m knitting a jacket for a new-born babe.’ I could picture the old pattern, probably English, possibly from the 50’s or 60’s or even older, comprising lacy jacket, booties, shawl and bonnet, in a pretty lacy pattern. My mother knitted them for my kids, but never in the impossibly thin wool which was like knitting with cobwebs. I admired the dear old lady’s determination, but then I bet she was knitting when Hitler was invading Poland;  and when our troops marched off to Korea to fight in snow and gave our wool industry a boost (think about it). I bet she was still knitting as she watched the moon landing and through Tricky Dickie’s crimes and cover-ups; through the Berlin wall coming down.  On and on through the decades until now.

`If you buy the wrong ones, I’m sure they’ll exchange.’ I offered helpfully.

`Oh no dear, we’re from Young.’

`Oh,’ says I, smiling, thinking of their journey down here. I bet they take a thermos then possibly treat themselves to lunch in a cosy café, like my friend and I do when we set out on a jolly jaunt to another town.

The two turned back to the task in hand, still prevaricating over which size was right.

`How about I google it?’

The pleasantly plump lady hesitated and I turned away, thinking perhaps they were sick of me interfering. But she looked over at me and said `Are you going to google it?’

I had it in a twinkling; the table showing the equivalent needles in millimetres, converted from the Imperial.

I finally left them to it and wandered about in the next aisle over where I got into a conversation with another lady, about losing loved ones and anxiety and depression…. and God. She introduced the subject, after she told me her brother had died 4 years before.  `I’m not religious,’ she said to me, `but I believe there’s Someone up there.’ These conversations are always negotiated carefully on my part, lest I intrude too far into someone’s private beliefs and cause offence.  I would absolutely hate to brow-beat someone about this subject, so I just let her talk. But I did tell her eventually, that God was my rock.