le Quatorze Juillet

Thank you, everybody, for all the help and support on the subject of my Travel Nerves.

I like Bonnie’s idea of hiring a car – specifically, hiring one for Greek Helen to drive us around in on Friday and Saturday next week. I will want to be where the action is during the earlier hours of those days, and will want to be able to get back from time to time to the inconveniently-located hotel where she and I are bunking, to rest and change into another dazzling costume.

We’ll explore that idea. She and her family will be here on Friday – yikes! We’ll spend the weekend together in K*rkmichael, picking red currants – I’ve netted the bush to keep the pigeons off – and then picking them again off the little stems and making summer pudding and, finally, eating it. On Monday my husband and I will come back here to regroup and, in my case, get my hair done. On Wednesday he goes to London, and granddaughter Lizzie comes here. They ought to be able to wave to each other when the trains pass.

On Thursday Helen’s husband David will drive their sons to Wales to see his mother, dropping Helen off at Edinburgh airport on the way.

Where she will be joined by me and Lizzie. Fortunately David is a man after my own heart, a worrier and a getter-to-places-earlier-than-strictly-necessary (unlike the man I married) – so I know Helen will be there in good time. (That's not David in the picture, though.)

And off we’ll go.

Knitting, mostly

I didn’t touch the Princess yesterday, and didn’t do much of the cardigan sleeve, either, being wholly obsessed with the Duchrow jabot. I don’t know whether this is a swatch or a trial run or an actual jabot. It’s certainly a lot of fun. (Jared says swatching is comparable to a first date – rather a good image, and one which should encourage all of us to do more of it.)


It’s pretty easy. The unfamiliar chart symbols are soon learned. The only difficulty at the start was my misunderstanding of a symbol which means, wrap the yarn around the needle twice. I thought that meant, create two new stitches, but it soon became clear that it doesn’t – it means, create one biggish hole. I’ve been having a bit of trouble in recent rows with a shortage of stitches but in general it’s going very smoothly.

I am terribly pleased with myself for making some use of this book. When I first saw the Duchrow set I thought, never. They are just here for the sake of bibliographical completeness. And here I am, knitting Duchrow!

Yesterday was largely spent (that’s my excuse) at the Royal Infirmary, accompanying my husband to a routine appt for his breathlessness. We saw an unfamiliar dr named MacDuff, which was wonderful enough in itself, who strikingly resembled next week’s bridegroom in both appearance and manner.

But today promises greater calm. No excuse for not grafting the Princess.