Calmer

I exchanged emails with my sister (who is a doctor) all day yesterday about eye-replacements. I am much comforted by all she says.

My seed potatoes arrived yesterday. Now we'll have to face up to deciding about Strathardle -- am I fit to drive there? My husband seems to think, yes. His own eyesight is acute, and although he doesn't drive, he backseat-drives from the front seat, constantly. He'd know, I think. But not today. I'm tired.

The jacket progresses, as you see. The upper picture is more faithful to the colours, and you can see what I'm worried about -- the change in the effect when I took the pink out, and made other, lesser changes. The lower picture purports to show the sleeve gusset on a stitch-holder, with a sleeve-opening steek replacing them. I found Meg's writings on neckhole steeks, and will certainly try. I also thinki I'll do it her way and knit the sleeves independently and join them at the top. My notes don't say which way I did them on the prototype jacket 12 years ago. Top-down, probably.

When I worked on the Knitlist, I was a member, with the other moderators, of a small private Yahoo Group to which we all posted all our messages to each other about Knitlist business, so that there would be a common archive. Today I got a message from someone who thought I was still a Listmom. I forwarded it to that address, and it bounced, because it seems I'm not a member any more.  Meaning, of course, that someone has gone in and thrown me out. I feel more than slightly miffed. I had thought to remain on the scene as a slightly tetchy elder statesman. I shudda been told, at least.

Oddly, perhaps, I found I was still a Moderator of the Knitlist, according to Yahoo. I figured out how to undo that status myself, so have had the small satisfaction of laying down my commission before it was stripped from me.

The latest issue of the British magazine "Knitting" turned up the other day -- it's now monthly. I have never knit anything from it nor been seriously tempted to. but I'm glad it's here. Now, according to the UKhandknitters group, there is to be another British magazine, starting in March. So all we need are some yarn shops, and we're all set for a renaissance.

While we were in Kirkmichael last week, I got this year's Games programme, and my heart sank. The two knitting categories are 1) a poncho and 2) best use of 100 grams of yarn. I refuse to knit a poncho. I suppose I could use exactly 100 grams for a pair of socks, if I did them toe-up, but I don't want to do them toe-up. The baking categories which granddaughter Lizzie might enter looked similarly dismal. What are "petticoat tails"? That was one of them.

But a second reading proved more cheerful. In the handicrafts section there appears "Hat-- any craft". So I'll knit my friend Janis Witkins' hat from the latest Knitter's -- or do I gather that there's another one just out? Anyway, Janis Witkins' hat. And Lizzie can try for the Jublee Rosebowl: a recipe for coffee-and-pecan cake is included. Everybody has to use the same recipe. It sounds delicious, even if she doesn't win.

The oddest thing about living in the antipodes, even odder than having to walk about on your hands, must be observing Lent in the diminishing light of autumn.