Today is Ketki's birthday. The day Alexander met her was a red letter day for all of us although unrecorded on any calendar. Except perhaps his.

I'm another digit down in the Lenten weight-loss. I was stuck on a plateau all last week.

We'll start with Archie's sweater. I was determined to show you a picture of it and took one and then discovered that the monitor of my old (slowcoach) desktop computer has died. How do you throw away a computer monitor? What shall I do with the computer and keyboard?

Anyway, up against it, I have taken a picture with the iPad and mailed it to myself. Here it is:

So I have acquired a new skill, iPad photography, clearly capable of some development.

Blocking was interesting. I found that I blocked the chest measurement to exactly the size I was aiming at from the pattern in the book – 26” across, 52” circumference. It a state of nature, it was about 23 1/2” across.  The back flap at the bottom is designed to be half an inch longer than the front flap -- that's why you can spot the bright red inner hem down there.

I am less happy about the neck. The book says it should be 15” in circumference, which is absurd. Try 15” of tape measure around your own neck and you will see what I mean. I've been back to Ravelry; other people's Henley necks look higher than mine. Can anything be done to correct it? I could unpick the edging and do an inch and a half (say) of ribbing instead. Maybe I'll take the spare yarn and some dp's to Athens and hope that it isn't too warm for Archie to wear the sweater around the house a bit while I contemplate the options.

Last night's knitting was devoted to the pocket square. That can be my second iPad photo, tomorrow, insh'Allah.

This is really embarrassing.

I am knitting a very simple and rather effective pattern that S. sent me. It's done corner-to-corner, in garter stitch. You cast on four stitches and knit every row: k2, YO, knit to end, until you think it is big enough. Then you switch to...

And what I did last week was switch to K1, k2tog, YO, knit to end. I actually knit several inches like that. When I sat down to it last night, I finally grasped, after knitting a couple more rows, that I could go on like that until kingdom come and never finish. So I ripped it all the way back to what should have been the corner-to-corner diagonal, and proceeded with k1, k2tog, YO, k2tog, knit to end – which actually reduces the stitch count.

Almost all of last night's knitting consisted of re-knitting the frogged yarn. I am now within a few rows of the end.

The pick-up after the frogging was pretty good, but not perfect. But I regard this as a sample square, not one of the finished eight. It would be usable. You begin by folding along a diagonal, and that fold winds up at the bottom, deep within the wearer's pocket. But I'd know.

So, no Tokyo yesterday. I hope to get back to it tonight.

Today a man is coming to try to teach my husband (and indeed, me) to live happily ever after with Microsoft Word. It will be an uphill struggle.