There you are. Finished. Four years and two months.

Not an FO yet, of course. There’s the grafting of the End to the Beginning to be done, and the repair of that moth hole, and loose ends to be tidied, and finally the blocking. I must do the grafting and moth-holing next weekend when we get back from Strathardle, while the edging pattern still precariously lodges in my mind. And I think I see a window of opportunity for the blocking: I’m due back from CT on the morning of Tuesday the 28th. Granddaughter Lizzie is going straight on down to London. My husband won’t return from London until the next day. That should leave me an unencumbered afternoon, on one of those days or the other, even allowing for sleep.

And my job in Strathardle this week, apart from my dear vegetables, is to knit the cardigan with single-minded fury.

Thank you for the advice about those sleeves, Lorrie. I always found when my children were small, that designers made sleeves too long. Or else my children had exceptionally short arms. And they (the children) weren’t terribly clever about rolling sleeves. Don’t worry here. If I shorten at all, it will only be by an inch or so, and shouldn’t be obvious to a judge as a design peculiarity.

Non-knit

Yesterday’s excitement was the arrival of my driving license.

We oldies have to re-apply every three years, and a good thing too. My old license expired, I think, at the end of June. I applied in April. My honest answers to the medical questions prompted them to send a supplementary medical questionnaire, which I answered in detail (with names and addresses of medical personnel) in May, on the day it arrived. All about eyes and Retinal Vein Occlusion and laser treatment.

So I’ve been anxious lately, hearing nothing, the more so because one of my magazines (cooking, not knitting) has recently failed to arrive. But here is the license. All is well. And the publishers are sending another copy of “delicious”.

So, we’re off to Strathardle and the vegetables. This is the big one: success or failure will be obvious, and it's essentially too late for remedial footwork. It was a long, cold, dry spring on the whole. When we left a fortnight ago, things were in great need of some warm weather to let them put on a growth spurt taking them forward to a stage where the slugs could wound but not kill. We got it (the warm weather) but so dry as to be thoroughly alarming – see the Fishwife’s report. These last few days have been warm and showery, perfect growing weather. What will I find?

Opium poppies grow as weeds among my vegetables – they seek out bare, cultivated ground as unerringly as pussy cats do. I love them, and always let a few grow and bloom. And wither in situ, so that there’ll be seeds for next year. (They’d probably get through even if I tried to root up every one, there are so many.) This year, I haven’t seen a single one. I know the tiny seedlings well and can recognise them from a very early stage.

Climate change?

See you Sunday, insh’Allah.