I've just been looking at a whole Flickr album of wedding pictures that Alexander sent. He's got some good ones. It is disconcerting to glimpse one's awkward, ill-sorted, elderly self amongst the jollity.

This is one of Helen's, though, Thomas and Lucy leaving the church as we all threw rose petals. There were no photographs during the ceremony. This is probably the best we'll get of the Princess in action.

I also like this one, of Helen's three sons. Fergus, on the left, will probably go to Merchiston too, but only after Archie, on the right, has left. That's Mungo in the middle. They are probably waiting around outside the church in Richmond before the ceremony, There were lots of kilts that day.

And I like this one of Alexander's, showing the bridegroom's younger brother Joe, who looked enormously smart and did a brilliant job as chief usher. The other chap was the best man, and this must have been taken as the bridegroom's party was setting out for the pub two hours before the wedding. They were all in the church, sober as coots, an hour before the ceremony, you will be glad to hear. 

I'll leave that, but oh, dear, Flickr is not going to cooperate.

I had a brief message from my sister yesterday – they reached London safely, Roger very tired. They still have today and tomorrow to recover before the flight to CT. One of the difficulties of life in Old Saybrook is that it is a long way from any international airport – a substantial amount of travel remains after touchdown.

Knitting

Not much to tell you. Archie has approved Composition Book Grey for his sweater with a wave of the hand, that's fine, despite its purpleness. I was all set to start again with El Greco. I wrote to Eat, Sleep, Knit asking if it is really grey, but haven't heard back. I must have used the wrong email address. It would be an appropriately named shade for a man who lives in Athens.

Not much got done over the weekend, but a bit. It's top-down, this sweater, and the increases for the raglan seams are piling on the stitches rather briskly. I will soon need a longer needle, and don't have a beautiful wooden one in the right size. The soon-to-be-too-short one I am knitting with is beautiful and wooden. I will be sorry to give it up. I think another order to Meadow Yarns looms.

The Knowledgeable Knitter and Brioche Style are both here, as well as Hazel Tindall's DVD's (you get two) about Fair Isle Knitting. (The return address on the jiffy bag, I am sure in her own hand, was, in effect, “Burnside, Shetland”. “Burnside” is the name of our house in Strathardle – see sidebar – but it takes a couple more lines of address to describe it fully. It is very pleasant to live beside a burn. The ancient Romans regarded the sound of water as a highly desirable adjunct to a country house – and so it is.)

But I haven't looked at the books, still less the DVD's. Some people, I gather, find that time hangs heavy in retirement. Not me. Capacity diminishes as duties do, and I find myself fully as far behind with everything as ever I was.