I'm half-way through repeat #59, Princess Shawl-wise. Some dropped-stitch trouble last night, due to misplaced self-confidence leading to momentary inattention. I think the repair will stand the galloping horse test, but this evening I'll switch to the Wallaby earlier, before tiredness and cider kick in. I'm half-way across the row, attaching the Wallaby pouch. Picture soon.

Today's picture is the progress report on the country striped Koigu. I did a bit, over last weekend, but not much.

I was very pleased, in the country, about granddaughter Rachel's interest in knitting. She's working away on the French knitting spool I gave her recently, and showed me some garter stitch squares she had knit in Beijing. Her parents, neither of whom knit, think her ayi did most of the work. Never mind: Rachel is interested and, much more exciting, is discussing knitting with her ayi in Chinese. I mean to make up a package from stash of yarn for both of them, and to ask the ayi -- I'll get her name properly written down when I see them next week -- to look for some more of the wonderful merino lace-weight I bought when I was there two years ago. I think I still have a ball band.

I've been thinking about Sharon Miller's Lavender Garden shawl for Ketki (the daughter-in-law who lives in Lavender Gardens). I'd like to do it in black, but Rowan Kidsilk Haze, for which it was written, doesn't come in black. I could use Sharon's lace-weight merino, which does: that's the stuff I started the Princess Shawl with, and liked, before Sharon herself intervened and put me on the right track. But the Chinese yarn would be perfect, and I love it in my hands.

And I want to give Rachel a book with children's projects -- does anybody have any ideas? I'd give a beginning adult knitter "The Knit Stitch" and "The Purl Stitch" by Sally Melville, and EZ's Knitting Workshop, but Rachel is too young for those.

Non-Knit: the Haliban Again

When I logged on to my bank account yesterday, I saw that the sum I made over to James and Cathy on Tuesday (see yesterday's Blog) had indeed been paid, and that an identical sum had been paid into my account on the same day. My first thought was, Bank Error in Your Favour Collect £200. My second thought, ten minutes later, was that nothing had been paid into James' and Cathy's account at all: it had been a completely circular transaction. (My own home accounts program, Quicken, won't let me do that, but the Halifax Building Society knows better.) The latter assumption proved to be the case. I hope yesterday's phone call, which was at least fairly brief and pleasant, has straightened things out. James is so important and has made himself so objectionable that they have given him a phone number which connects directly with somewhere in Scotland (judging from accents) which is easier, in a crisis, than dealing with Mumbai. Although, even so, not terribly easy, as this week's events prove.

The case of the innocent Brazilian shot dead in Stockwell tube station is becoming an international incident, as well it might. The behaviour of the police exceeds by far what we hear of New York, and the initial account which the police put about -- that he was wearing a padded jacket, failed to stop when hailed, vaulted the toll machines, etc. -- turns out to be lies from beginning to end.