A quick, picture-less touchdown this morning – we’re off to Strathardle. We’ll be back for at least a couple of nights next week, as my husband has a hospital appt for a scan a week today.

After that it’s all systems go for the Games. At present, it looks like a near full-house. Helen's husband David may be the only absentee. I can take a complete Grandchildren picture for the sidebar, if so. I chose my menu yesterday (I am responsible for the tailgate picnic) -- simplicity is to be the note. Piles of sausages and barbecued chicken legs as usual. The three salads will be Claire Macdonald's tomato, from last Saturday's Scotsman; and a green bean and a chick-pea-and-feta one from Jamie Oliver. Lots of beer and cider and potato crisps can be taken as read.

But two out-of-the-blue disasters have hit Rachel and her family in the last five days: a burnt-out clutch which is going to be very expensive, and a diagnosis of breast cancer in her husband's family. So I am sad and worried, and edgier than ever about chicken-counting.

I spoke to James yesterday. They’re in Cheltenham, with Cathy’s family, so at least they get a bit of a head start on the long drive north on Friday.

Helen, from Strathardle, reports that there are so many courgettes that she is making soup. I have never achieved a glut, or even near-glut, before, and am pretty excited about this. The Fishwife gave me a book last year, “What Will I Do With All Those Courgettes?”, which so far I have not had real occasion to use. It’s a slim vol – Helen may not have spotted it in the cookery book shelf.

I finished the neck band for the Children’s Cardigan and picked up the stitches for the button band. I’ll have to take a textbook along to help with the buttonholes.

I’ll also take the jabot, as far as I’ve got. When the moment comes – probably not this week; they won’t want me pestering them at the weekend – I’ll thread it onto waste yarn and take it in to the Blairgowrie kiltmaker to discuss whether they can sell me a bib-and-collar and perhaps consider construction techniques, if they’re feeling chatty. At the moment I don’t see how it is to be folded back on itself to make successive layers. That may become clearer as I proceed. I would be embarrassed to go back to Kinloch Anderson to have another look.

Yes, Tamar, oddly, I have read of spray starch being used on woollen lace shawls. I can’t remember the context. That’s a possibility to keep in mind.