Most of yesterday was devoted to tasks associated with eating, but I did get a few more rows done on the Long Shawl.

VKB no. 17 has already been bid up to £10.50, with more than 48 hours to go. I’m tempted to bid £11, just to see whether the top bidder’s bid would automatically increase – that is, whether she has bid more than £10.50 and eBay is holding the rest of the bid in reserve in the clever way it does. But I think both Alexander and my friend Helen who is going to do the actual bidding for me on Wednesday, would have me hold my hand. Someone else may do it, anyway.

The Beijing Mileses had a pleasant day yesterday watching as much as they could discern through the crowd, of the Festival Fringe Opening Day Parade. They plan to go on north today. We’ll follow on Wednesday. I have begun to worry about how we are going to fit six children into that house, once Helen and David come back.

I didn’t take any pictures yesterday after all, so here instead are pictures of Rachel’s family taken during their recent holiday in France.



From left to right, Thomas-the-elder (our eldest grandchild, who turned 22 last Saturday); his younger brother Joe, with his clever and beautiful girlfriend Francesca; Lizzie, the youngest; our son-in-law Ed; and Hellie.




Lizzie, Joe, Hellie.

Computer-y

All day long on Saturday I was besieged by a Trojan Horse called “Deep Throat”. Norton kept claiming to have batted one of them away every minute or two. The siege has stopped, I am glad to say. I had never had anything like that before.

Visits from James, like those from my sister, involve a lot of unnerving episodes in which wires are pulled out of the back of my computer and then eventually re-inserted with the visitor saying, I put it back in the same place; I can’t think why it isn’t responding.