I suddenly feel a new sprightliness, quite unexpected – as if I could see beyond the Games to the invigorating shores of September.

We’ve heard from the Beijing Mileses. They’ve been in DC lately, but last night returned from the US to London, and will drive to Strathardle on Friday. So we’ll go up tomorrow. Vegetables! Helen and her boys are there, although they’ll leave on Friday for a brief trip to London. It’s all go around here.

Every summer I get some seed-sprouting equipment to do with the children, and every summer I fail. This year it is to be micro-plants, grown in vermiculite. We are told that Top Restaurants use them in salads for concentrated flavour. We should get there in time tomorrow to launch a tray-full with the Drake boys, and then I can start some more over the weekend with the Mileses.

I knocked off a few more lace edging repeats for the jabot yesterday, and then stiffened my sinews and got back to the Child’s Cardigan. It is now completely assembled, and a fair number of the loose ends (the stripe-knitter’s bane) have been dealt with. I’ve picked up the stitches for the neck edging and am happily ribbing.

When I get to the Adult Surprise, I’ll have to deal with loose ends as I go along. The alternative is unthinkable.

Wedding

I got some pictures yesterday. Sister Helen had done a brilliant job of assembling family: there never has been such a gathering. Her husband Roger, my brother-in-law, is distinctly short of relatives, but the other three strands that go to make up the new family were there in abundance: Theo’s mother’s relatives, who are also mine since she's my sister, and both sides of Jenni’s family.

Here are bride and groom with my first cousin Trinkie, my father's brother's daughter.

Here’s the bride with the Beijing Miles girls. Rachel, on the right, is the one for whom the Child’s Cardigan is intended. Kirsty, on the left, is the fail-safe.