James Miles the Younger is six years old today.

Well, I signed up for Annie’s class. Thanks, Fishwife – yours was the final push. I was going to email her to let her know that I was one of the people who had signed in hopes of Combination Knitting, not one of the Tips and Tricks crowd – but once one takes the plunge and clicks on Tips and Tricks, the subsequent screens refer to Combination so I’ve stopped worrying altogether. I suspect a amateur hand at web design at work in there somewhere – the final screen, after the Paypal bit, thanks one for buying a pattern.

This is going to be fun.

Little else to report. I knit happily on – I can almost hold the unedged part of the top of the Princess straight in my outstretched arms. I’ve pretty well mastered the pattern. Four years ago, when I had my cataract operations, I amused myself (as I have often mentioned) by reciting the edging pattern to myself while the man was working on me. There will be a certain poetry if I can do the same thing when my Retinal Vein Occluded eye is zapped with a lazer in ten days time.

Although I will by then have switched to the Surprise. As anticipated, I spent some time yesterday digging out stash yarns for it. My stash contains very few clear, bright colours. They’re all brown-y, muddy, Jean-y. However, I’ve found a couple. The great thing about the Surprise is that the stripes look carefully planned and arranged no matter how haphazard they are in fact, but I think some actual planning doesn’t come amiss. A small light, bright stripe sandwiched between broader stripes of a darker colour, for instance, as in the pattern photographs.

About as non-knit as you can get

Does anyone know anything about Google Online Profit? Ads keep popping up for it while I am innocently doing jigsaw puzzles. It's not for ourselves, but I know people (don't we all?) with fast broadband connections who could do with some extra cash. One is heartily sceptical of such advertisements. On the other hand, one trusts the name "Google" by now.