There is exciting news on the horticultural front: those chilli seeds I planted are coming up!

Last year, when the family was moving from Beijing to Sydenham, James brought his brother Alexander a substantial consignment of Chinese chillies. (Alexander is a very serious cook.) For reasons I have forgotten, the package was briefly with me and before handing it on, I sequestered a few chillies. One of them provided the seeds.

How can I go to Athens? The poor little things will wither away. I wonder if Alexander knows anything about what sort of chillies they are.

The iPad labels photographs with where they were taken. When I take pictures in the sitting room, they're in Drummond Place. I am rather chagrined to discover that the kitchen is in Scotland Street around the corner. Steve Jobs must know where my first iPad is.

Knitting

I finished the first Sous Sous pattern repeat and am well into the second. Today I switch back to the Tokyo shawl.

The Sous Sous is looking good. Double moss stitch makes a very attractive fabric although I dread the result if I drop a stitch or make a mistake. Mistakes scream at the viewer and are singularly hard to repair. The stitch is not at all difficult (although slow, for a clumsy knitter like me) if you 1) remember the Master's injunction – look at your knitting; and 2) make a real effort to be mindful of whether, at any given moment, you are knitting a right-side row or a wrong-side one.

That's not entirely true, about mistakes screaming. I do seem to have a passage where things went wrong, near the beginning. It really, reeely doesn't look bad. I doubt if I could figure it out to repeat on the front if I wanted to.

I had an email from Webs pushing, amongst other things, semi-solid Koigu. That's what I need, in a dark grey or black, to deal with my large heterogeneous stash. Stripes, in other words. But there's no need to order now. I am fully booked at least until the end of June, with other tantalising WIPs on the horizon – that Fair Isle vest, that Jack Russell terrier. No, no more yarn now.

Non-knit

The removal of word verification for comments is producing 8-10 rogue comments a day, a manageable number. So far.

This busy week has got a bit worse – I've got to wait in for a package tomorrow. My husband isn't nimble enough to be trusted to get to the front door. That means that the supermarket will have to be done today, as well as the dr's appt in the afternoon. Pretty strenuous. Friday, after the eclipse, I must go up the hill to get pills from Boots and respectable underwear from John Lewis and a new watch strap from Timson's. And Saturday is for shawl-blocking.

Although I might possibly pull that off tomorrow while waiting for the package.

You're absolutely right, Nana Go-Go, that this would have been the week for doing the grocery shopping on-line. I have done it, when first one and then the other of my arms were broken, and when I was suffering from that mysterious weakness last year which turned out not to be my heart. I prefer to do it on foot. Inspiration as to possible meals is more likely to strike, that way. But I could have made things easier for myself this week.

Don't fail to follow the link to Nana's blog for a mouth-watering account of the Edinburgh Yarn Festival. Oh, what I have missed!