I'll mark time with more gardening pictures today.

We've had many an unsuccessful struggle with clematis, but I think we've finally got a montana going on the front of the house. It's been in a year; these are its first flowers. It's growing with enthusiasm -- the last thing my husband said as we got into the car on Tuesday, was that it had reached the gutters. We'll have to attend to it first thing, when we get back.

And here, too, is a picture of some broad beans which actually came up. A second sowing, two days later, same seed packet, but in a sluggier part of the vegetable patch, achieved about 20% germination.

Tam o'Shanter

I read the poem. Sure enough, he's wearing his "gude blue bonnet" -- but there's nothing to explain why he should have given his name to it, up there with the Duke of Wellington and Lord Cardigan.

My own tammy progresses. I've started to decrease, and may even be able to finish it off over the weekend. What a relief that would be.

Princess Shawl

If I knew for sure what the word "Zen-like" means, I might say that this is a Zenlike experience. There is no realistic prospect of finishing in any sort of imaginable future -- of finishing the edging, even, let alone the shawl. The whole pleasure resides in the process, like life itself.

And I am enjoying it. I'm somewhere in the 8th repeat at the moment, more and more resolved to go on with the present yarn. Someone on the Heirloom Knitting list said yesterday that she can't make headway with the #70 crochet cotton prescribed, which rather strengthens my preference.