This has been a very long, hectic week.  We have all been getting to work early and leaving late.  There has been little time for knitting.  In fact, there has been little time for eating, sleeping, reading, cooking, shopping and anything else.  So, today when my phone rang as soon as I got in the office, with a frazzled sounding department secretary on the other end, I thought “This can’t be good.”

“There is an exam this morning, about to start, and the invigilator can’t make it. No one else is available at short notice.  Could I impose on you?”

An invigilator, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the person who sits at the front of the room when an official exam is being held, and makes sure that no one has the opportunity to cheat.  (In the US, I think they are called proctors.)  In large exams, with many students, there can be a host of invigilators, who walk up and down the aisles and must keep an eagle eye on the exam takers.  For this exam there would be only 9 students, spread out in the room, and the invigilator’s main task is just to sit there and be present in the room for the whole two hours, and to keep time.  When you know that you are going to invigilate an exam, you prepare some work to take with you, exams to grade, an article to read, etc.  When you are called at the last minute to run across the campus, and sit in a room for two hours, you don’t always have something portable with you that you can work on.

What do you think my response was?

“Could I knit?” I ask.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Then I would be very happy to help you out.”

And that is how I came to spend two hours knitting at work, in a wonderfully quiet room, with sunshine pouring in the windows.  I love invigilating!