A successful day, on the whole.

-- I bought Vogue Knitting Book No. 8 for substantially less than I have ever before paid for a single-digit, i.e., 1930’s, VKB. I might as well tell you: £21. I got No. 23, autumn 1943 I think, wanted for the sake of its cover, for a couple of pounds.

-- I got some potatoes in, trench and all.

-- I bought some compost and filled the pots and the Roottrainer in which I will soon start courgette and bean seeds. My flesh-and-blood local guru, the Spinning Fishwife, says “mid April” for this activity, so I will hold off until next week. (The link is to her garden blog, sadly neglected of late.)

-- I solved a plumbing problem which had been worrying me. When we leave the Perthshire house, we turn off the water and drain the tanks. In winter, we also open five little taps/screws/spigots under the five sinks/basins to drain the horizontal pipes. The last time we left, the one under the kitchen sink came completely free. That had happened before, and we had to call a plumber. If I couldn’t get it back in securely, we obviously couldn’t turn the water on. It is an awkward operation at the best of times because the particular pipe involved is at the back of one of those kitchen cupboards with things in it. But I succeeded, and now don’t need to worry about that over Easter.

-- I emptied out and re-did and brought back the herb trough that lives on the doorstep here.

-- I picked a lot of daffodils

BUT

I forgot to take the nematodes along.

I left them on the kitchen table here. There is nothing to be done – they’ll have to go in next time, past their-sell by date.

I didn’t put in any broad beans, for lack of time. But the seedling weeds aren’t up yet – they are the gardener’s sure signal that’s it’s time to get going. It’s easy to be impatient. The later seeds catch up remarkably well.

As for the Princess, I’m past half-way on row seven of the final repeat. (Row 38 will be the end.) This early stage of the repeat is slow and of course the rows are longer than they used to be. But I have the hope that I may have finished the awkward early rows – and “2009” -- before Easter.

(Rosesmama, I hope you’ll try lace lettering. It’s sort of tricky because there is no rhythm to it. The same is true of colour-work lettering. In both cases, it is sort of magic when rhythm-less tricky knitting pulls itself together and makes a new sense.)

Adrian from Trailfinders phoned while I was away. My husband didn’t try to take a message. I am filled with a renascent anxiety about my booking – KLM seems willing to let me off the hook, but will Trailfinders play ball? The cancellation of the non-existent flight has to come through them. We’ll soon know.