I resumed the Tokyo shawl yesterday, with a bit of a blip. The pattern is of the simplest – k20, k2tog, k48, yo; repeat that sequence once; k20. I lost a stitch somewhere, and one of the curves of eyelets is somewhat out of whack. There is the mildest of difficulties involved in the fact that alternate bands are of reversed st st and that involves reversing the pattern – k20, yo, k48, k2togtbl etc. I must keep at it this time until I have really mastered it and I am sure it's safe to lay it aside.

And I must fit pocket squares into the General Scheme of Things. Maybe weekends? The wedding is in mid-September. I'd like to have them done by the end of May if only to give Matt time to change his mind. About knitted pocket squares, I mean, not about Hellie.

Back to Greece

On Tuesday we went to Corinth. Today's pictures are my own.

We went to see, and to be the guests of, an archaeologist friend of Greek Helen's, a lively woman nearly as old as I am. We started at the ruins of the Temple of – oh dear, was it Poseidon? Her life work, and the site of the ancient Corinthian Games.

Then on to the ancient harbour – it must have been where St Paul landed; there is no other. It is, as you can see, no-where's-ville, and all the more interesting for that. 

The shingle is liberally laced with pottery fragments, presumably ancient. We picked up a few.

Then on to the main ruins of ancient Corinth. Helen's friend was able to take us into a workroom where a recently-excavated mosaic was being worked on, nothing desperately distinguished but interesting for Helen (herself a mosaicist) to see it and to talk to the men who were working on it. That's her in the background.

Then the on-site museum. I wish we had had Kaffe with us. He did a vest pattern using the border at the centre of this mosaic. Where?

And we wondered how ancient spirographs worked, exactly. We saw another one like this at the National Archaeological Museum later in the week.

Then Helen's friend gave us a delicious lunch at home with a view overlooking Mount Helicon. When she and her husband are in Britain, they live at Glen Farg not far from Strathardle. They often spend time in Kirkmichael.

Then we went out for coffee and some souvenir-shopping.