Laetare!

Every morning – Lent or no Lent, cider or no cider – I weigh myself on digital scales and write down the result in my electronic Filofax, otherwise devoted to knitting. I lost 20 pounds or so in 2009. It started in Lent, with an additional resolution not to allow myself to replace the absent cider with chocolate. I kept the weight off in 2010 and 2011. 2012 didn’t go as well (=more cider).

So you’ll want to know that this morning, I was 7 ¼ pounds lighter than on Ash Wednesday (good), but 5 pounds heavier than on Laetare Sunday last year (I mustn't forget).

Knitting news

Craftsy has been working harder and harder lately to gain my custom. They’ve finally cracked it – Franklin is making a class. The only thing that has been holding me back is that I haven’t got time. I’ve always got time for Franklin. His topic is as yet unannounced – never mind that.

It is from Franklin, too, that I learn of the Fiber Factor design competition. That’s going to be fun to follow.

And – not from Franklin, this titbit – tonight we get Anne Cleeves and Shetland in a new BBC television series. I don’t recognise tonight’s title, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t one of the two I’ve read. The news is that some of the Shetland knitting we will see comes from my neighbour Kate Davies! That’s 1-0 to the Second New Town.

Non-knit

Well, you will have guessed that yesterday’s silence was due to an influx of family. We had a nice time with Thomas-the-Elder on Friday evening. On Saturday morning the Loch Fyne Mileses breezed in for an hour, all of them looking very well. Alexander says he has recovered from shingles. The areas where the rash was, are numb, he says – as if the nerve endings which were so uncomfortable have now died? He took some pictures of us all milling about in the kitchen -- I hope I'll have some to show you.

After a while the Mileses carried Thomas off towards Murrayfield, where, subsequently, Scotland lost to Wales. The Mileses are devoted attenders at Glasgow Warriors home matches, and come over to Murrayfield not infrequently. Alexander said yesterday that his sons have never seen Scotland win.

It will be grand to see them all again at Easter, and that's not far away now.

The weather has turned savage, including some snow, after balmy lamb-and-daffodil days early last week. I don’t know what we’re going to do about Strathardle.

Knitting

Not much was done during all this excitement. A couple more rows remain of the Relax before I start shoulder shaping. This evening, surely. But I must keep my eyes on the screen so as not to miss Kate Davies.