I'm feeling perhaps a bit better, and drinking soothing herbal teas. Not much knitting yesterday – there's a bit of trouble at the end of the edging of the Bridal Shawl, where the big long needle slipped out. I've now got all the stitches, rather clumsily, on a sock needle protected fore and aft. I fear there's a break, too – m*ths, again? – in the yarn of the border, which is going to be awkward to repair because there's nothing to speak of in the way of a loose end.

Still – onward! I never get much done on Sunday.

I didn't get much tax done, either, partly because of titanic struggles between me, Old Slowcoach, and the printer, as I tried to print out spreadsheets so that I could clip them to their supporting evidence. There's an awful lot of paper involved in this job. And also partly because I had to keep going to help my husband. I don't know how he manages to get into such messes. Reducing the whole text to minuscule size is a favourite with him, splitting the screen, or losing the text altogether.

I often find it difficult to locate the pointer – do I mean, cursor? – on his computer and will try, today, to change it into something more visible, at least. It will save a bit of time.

It sounds stormy out there – if it's too unpleasant for a walk, that will add a valuable ¾ hour to my morning. The thing with the tax is to keep at it. There's really not much more to do, but there must be no more days off.

Maybe my panic is sheer fear of filing the return on-line. It's got to be done – too late for anything else. I've done it two or three times before. The website is very good, easy to navigate. Nothing to be afraid of, really. But it's a bit like cutting a steek, for scariness. I think you're allowed to do a bit and then store it and stop. Maybe I should try that.

However, yesterday's big news has nothing to do with knitting or the income tax, although it's not unrelated to panic. Out niece C., the one I go for walks with, and I have been talking about going to Athens. Greek Helen has been emailing everybody inviting them, now or never, as the family is soon to move back to the UK. And C. said, on our most recent walk, that she was thinking of going at Easter, and I said, maybe I'll come with you.

And yesterday we booked it. EasyJet only offers one flight a week from Edinburgh to Athens, and the air time is long enough (four hours) that if we broke the journey anywhere, we'd have to devote a whole day to it. So we're going on Palm Sunday, and back on Easter Day. The timing could scarcely be more inconvenient. I don't begin to see how my children can possibly manage. The project has been discussed with them in the abstract, and they were encouraging.

It would be nice if they could get my husband to Strathardle. He is unhappy about being so long away.