Mrs Carson

Truly devoted readers will remember the name.

I didn't sew the wretched buttons on last night, because someone is coming to lunch today and therefore the dining-room floor is not available for blocking purposes. No use finishing the jacket if I can't block it.

I have been keeping a close eye on the state of the dining room since our little difficulty in January when water came through the ceiling. Yesterday, I even thought we could go all gracious and remove the newspaper which covers the oak chest under the Fatal Spot. But when I went to do it, the paper, although absolutely dry, looked suspiciously pock-marked. So I replaced it with fresh paper and checked every half-hour and sure enough, just before we went to bed, a fresh, wet spot. I phoned the girls upstairs, who promised to have no more baths (they can shower without inundating us, oddly) and left a message for Mrs Carson who lives in North Berwick and owns the flat on Scotland Street from which bath water emanates.

Blast.

I knit more of the Clapotis, but still havn't reached the first ladder. I was sort of worried about the large wodge of solid fabric I was accumulating and, reading ahead, worried also about how few stitches I would soon be asked to drop. But then I got it, I think. The diagonality of the thing means that I will have plenty of ladders (which will run back into the present solid wodge) if I stop fretting and follow instructions. This is the first time I have knit anything from an on-line knitting magazine, for what that's worth.

Still no sign of Knitting magazine.

So today's picture is neither jacket nor Clapotis but a rocking horse which was in the auction sale I went to this week. It cost somebody nearly six thousand pounds. I have never seen anything like it. Those two little wicker seats, front and back, of DIFFERENT SIZES, mean that the rider could keep two of her younger sib happy as she rode along. And I say "her" not from a misplaced wish to use it as the generic pronoun, but because the horse is fitted for riding sidesaddle.