I've started the Princess Shawl border. There are 219 rows in it. I've done one of them, and begun the second. It's surprisingly easy, astonishing, really, after that edging. I was well more than half-way through the 85 repeats of the edging before I learned the pattern. Whereas I had the first row border pattern in my head after two or three repeats, and was able to knit happily across without looking at the chart. But it still takes quite a long time to knit 865 stitches.

Betty, yesterday's commenter, has been to Stitches, happy woman! (although I gather it wasn't quite as good as usual this year, vendor-wise) and bought a lace sampler scarf kit. This sort of ties in with Obscure's comment of the day before: lace is tempting, lace is fun, but what to do with it? I love knitting cosy shawls in Shetland jumper weight or its equivalent, but then what? If I try wearing one, my husband says it makes me look like a crazed social worker. For cosy, in the cold winter, both he and I prefer a Pakastani shepherd's shawl (rectangular, woven) which our son Alexander brought back for us when he went trekking in the Himalayas once.

Scarves are a perfect solution. Or just give up, like me and the Princess, and knit something which is of no use whatsoever to anyone. If I do finish it, it'll have been lost or eaten by moths before we have a bride in position to wear it.

Knitting and Stitching Show

Our October visit to London (art, "Guys and Dolls", Thomas-the-Elder's belated 21st birthday dinner) coincides, miraculously, with the Knitting and Stitching show at the Alexandra Palace. I'd like to go, and have the happy prospect in addition of meeting Mary Morrison (http://morcatknits.typepad.com/), one of my favourite Bloggers. I'm not sure I'll make it -- the Ally Pally is a long way north, and Streatham, where we'll be, is a long way south, and the only open day is the one that ends with the birthday dinner; but I'm hoping. Mary has provided herself with a Europe-friendly mobile telephone, and I've got the number. At the worst, we'll talk.

Non-Knit

I finished the income tax yesterday, bar a number or two. Today I must decide whether to file on-line, as the government is keen to have me do. Or send it off in the mail as usual. The thing is, I don't want to know immediately what we'll have to pay in January. I want to get that letter from the tax man which says, "I am pleased to agree your figures" and makes me feel as if I'd got a gold star on my homework.

But with that out of the way -- the deadline is September 30 -- I can look forward to the new month and the new magazines, Knitting and Kitchen Garden and the cookery ones. The tax job had been looming as a dreadful barrier between me and the first week of October.

That's another picture from Games Day, above. It's the one I've set as my computer wallpaper for the year. Sort of elegaic.