Not an entirely happy time, yesterday.

To start with the positive, however, I saw a pleasant orthopaedic surgeon – it's a different one each time – who professed himself pleased with my progress. The fractures still look awful on the xray to the untrained eye, but even I can see how new bone is forming around them. (“The way a tree heals,” my husband said.) Yesterday’s man quantified the unstraightness which I have been told about from the beginning – the humerus can be up to 30 degrees off the true without impairing function, he said. I’m about 10 degrees.

The bad news is that the brace has gone back on, and I must return in four weeks (on Pearl Harbor Day, as it happens). No physiotherapy yet. “When do you think I can drive?” “About two months.” “What about Christmas?” “Well, maybe by Christmas.”

We had planned to spend Christmas in Strathardle. The Beijing Mileses are coming, as James apparently wants to introduce his children to the dark, cold, damp Christmas experience of his own youth. He is having driving trouble of his own – he is a Type 1 diabetic, and needs to renew his license every three years with a doctor’s note. The DVLA isn’t terribly keen on issuing one to a man without a British address, and hire car companies are not, in their turn, keen on Chinese driving licences.

So we shall see.

The other bit of bad news is considerably worse. I seem to have lost my knitting.

I thought I took the travel sock along, as I had planned to do. But when I settled down on the bus and intended to take it out, it wasn’t there. I assumed I had left it behind after all (as I had my sandwich) in the last-minute flurry to depart, so I didn't worry, all afternoon. But when I got back I couldn’t find it here, either.

I still have a lingering hope that I will find it here. The worst of the loss is a set of Joe's double-pointed no. 1’s in an Indian wood whose name I forget. They are bliss, stronger and smoother and a nicer colour than Brittany birches. They take sock-knitting to a whole new level. Joe used to sell them, but his Blog doesn’t mention them these days. I have emailed him. I think I have more. I’ll have to nerve myself to look. But I need a reserve.

There was also a Katcha Katcha, and, of course, the current sock – the ribbing of the second one was nearly finished. (The first sock is safely here.) These are trivial losses compared to those needles.

Miscellaneous

The Therapy Scarf has passed four feet. I finished another skein of wool last night. Each of the three skeins I’ve wound so far had a knot in it – maybe that has something to do with why Debbie Bliss “Maya” is no longer on the market.

Rosane, Franklin himself said he had been rejected (twice, I think) for Knitlist membership. This was some months ago, but less than a year. Is there some way you can search the text of his wonderful Blog?