Still no snow in Edinburgh. Bitter cold. Another walk-that-left-me-reeling, yesterday afternoon. My husband came through it in better shape.

It’s not an FO until that final wretched third button is in place, but I’m very happy with the result so far. Size in all directions is absolutely centre-of-the-target. Could it have something to do with swatching?

I made some progress on the Princess last night, but not much. That sentence will do as a daily report (I hope) for months to come. Perhaps this evening I’ll work out roughly how many stitches there are. Enough, certainly, that adding one more at the end of the row – as one does, every row – couldn’t make any appreciable difference. One feels. I think even at the top of the centre, which seems a long way off at the moment, there will be fewer stitches than there were in every row of the border. And there were hundreds of rows in the border.

There’s something about lace knitting that makes every stitch significant, even when one is knitting one’s way through half-an-acre of Princess centre, and thus creates the temptation to sit down and knock off a few pattern repeats – half-a-row is by now too ambitious for a little mid-morning break.

Wedding

My sister is pressing for definiteness. Even though there are more than five months to go, I may phone the travel agent today and try to book Lizzie and me in to Hartford via Amsterdam. I must give some thought to knitting, too. Socks, I think. I want to have a serious look at Kaffe’s new range for Regia.

Who was it said that you can buy tulip bulbs in Amsterdam airport? Perhaps I can spot the shop on the way out, and call back five days later to pick up a few for Strathardle. Neither my husband nor even Alexander quite grasps that tulips will bloom once, or maybe twice, and then fade away, here in Scotland, whereas daffodils go on forever, and multiply. My husband likes tulips, though; and they would be a bright souvenir of the wedding, next spring.

Here’s a question: I had thought of getting myself a Kindle for this trip. What the hell, since I am going to be spending so much anyway. (If enough people would just get married, the credit crunch would surely be at an end. I will buy airline tickets, clothes, a hotel room, a wedding present, and so will dozens of other people, while the families at the centre of it all will spend vast sums – crede expertae – on everything else. I’m not complaining. It’s fun.)

A Kindle would reduce the bulk I will have to carry, and would completely obviate the problem of finding that the books I had brought weren’t proving satisfactory.

The price is more than a bit breathtaking. At the moment, I can’t get one anyway. Amazon.com in the US is out of stock, and won’t send them abroad when they become available. Amazon.co.uk doesn’t seem to have them either. Other eBooks are about. Is it worth getting one of them (money no object, for the moment)? Or better to hold out for a Kindle? Or forget the whole idea and buy a couple of well-chosen paperbacks? I think Eudora Welty’s “Delta Wedding” ought to be one of them.