Hi, sorry if someone else has done 'schoolmistress' for this - I promise that this will be different!

Normal disclaimers.

Schoolmistress

There have been many odd sights that have greeted my eyes on entrance to our lounge in Baker Street over the last fifteen years. But none were more so than this. I stood staring at Sherlock Holmes for a moment, before closing the door behind me, and coming, open-mouthed, to stand in the middle of the room, still staring at Holmes.

He looked up and glanced at me for a minute, before saying, "Good evening, my dear Doctor. I take it you have had a hard day? Mrs Prentice being her usual self?"

I felt my eyes widen, "Dare I…?"

"It is quite elementary. You are limping slightly, and the weather being quite inclement, this suggests that you have been on your feet a good portion of the day. You also have the soil of several different London boroughs attached to your feet, from which I suggest that you have been traipsing around the city after your various patients. Am I right?"

"Quite. But what of Mrs Prentice?"

"Whenever you go to treat that woman, you come back not only tired, but with the joint odours of mothballs and cats on your clothing. Mrs Prentice is the only one of your patients that I know of who both has cats and affixes mothballs to anything and everything she can get her hands on. As regards to your current state of exhaustion, the woman is a complete hypochondriac, and you always return from her house completely drained."

"You are, as usual, correct, Holmes."

"Good." He looked up again. I was still staring, transfixed, on what he was doing. "Watson, I take it that my deductions alone are not what are making you stand there like a fish?"

"Holmes…"

"What on earth is it, Watson?"

"I believe that my eyes must be deceiving me…"

"I think that unlikely."

"Because what I see, and you'll forgive me for saying it, is you sitting there knitting a woolly scarf."

"Oh, well done, Watson. I have to say, after fifteen years, I did hope that your lessons in deduction were coming further than deducing that because I am sitting here, needles and wool at the ready, I am knitting a scarf. And anyway," he said, petulantly, "It is not a scarf. It is meant to be a blanket."

"It is a bit narrow…" I started.

Holmes made a rather eloquent noise, and continued with his work.

"Holmes?" I asked.

"Yes… Oh Blast!" he exclaimed, as he dropped a needle.

"Why are you knitting a scarf?"

"It is a blanket!"

"Very well, a blanket…"

My answer came not from Holmes, but from another activity. There was a knock at the door, and Holmes shot up, bunged the knitting under a cushion, threw a ball of wool into the fireplace, took his seat again and then said "Come."

Mrs Hudson came in, looked at Holmes suspiciously, smiled at me, and said "Tea is ready, gentlemen."

"Thank you, Mrs Hudson," I said, and the lady shot one more look at Holmes, before walking out. I turned to Holmes. "You are knitting that for Mrs Hudson!"

"Not so loud!" Holmes hushed me. "Do you want her to find out?"

"Why?"

"It is Mrs Hudson's birthday in a month or two, and I am somewhat short on capital…"

"But Holmes!" I said, shocked to find that my roommate had been so profligate. "The money from the affair of the red ribbon! And the reward from the Shah of Persia…"

"My brother took the opportunity to suggest an investment. It is doing very well, of course, but I am unable to remove my money for a few months, and forgot to allow myself to budget for a present for our inestimable landlady."

"That is quite endearing, Holmes." I said, smiling, as Holmes retrieved his wool.

Three hours later, trying desperately to work on a new manuscript, I did not think it so endearing. The combined noises of the infernal clacking of needles, and Holmes' frustrated sighs were beginning to grate a little. All of a sudden, an explosion of curses emanated from him, and I looked up. "For heaven's sake, Holmes!"

"Dash it, Watson! Why is this so difficult? How on earth do women do it?" He looked up. "Watson, how do I pick up a stitch that I've dropped?"

"Holmes, I am a Doctor, not a schoolmistress. I probably, thank heaven, know less about knitting than you do…"

"But you were married…"

"Yes, Holmes. But Mary and I did not spend our spare time sitting in front of the fire knitting together."