We’re tottering on. Rachel has gone, much missed. It’s just me and Archie and Perdita now.

My husband is a lot better than he was, detached now from all tubes except for oxygen up his nose. Dozy, bad-tempered. He is very weak. He is agitating to come home, which I am sure is a healthy symptom as long as they don’t let him do it. It takes two or three nurses to move him to the chair beside his bed.

I heard some of Obama’s convention speech. If that can’t win the presidency for Hillary, there’s no hope for her. I gather Michelle’s was even better. The next few weeks are going to be very interesting, and the presidential debates, fascinating. My husband and I saw the very first ones, Kennedy-Nixon, in 1960 in Northampton, MA, by going across the street to watch a neighbour’s television. [Presumably abandoning Rachel and Alexander to their fates. I don’t remember.] We saw the famous five-o’clock-shadow which is said to have lost the election for Nixon. In this case, the candidates will scarcely be speaking the same language.

Archie and I have watched “Zelig”. It’s pretty entertaining, although far from Allen’s best. (“Manhattan”, “Annie Hall”, “Sleeper”, “Play It Again, Sam”) It was odd, indeed, seeing my father as my contemporary, when he always used to be so much older.

I think I’m rather avoiding the subject of knitting. I’m completely stuck on that final edge of the Hansel shawl. Why? Why? Hospital visiting is good for socks – I’ve finished the graduated ones (although haven’t yet finished them), and have cast on and made good progress with Vampires in Venice. It doesn’t swoop as I had hoped, on 56 stitches, but at least it makes tidy stripes. Picture soon. I must pull myself together. I’m not all that far away from the first heel.

Knitlass, I travel to the RIE on the No 8 from Broughton Street, so alas! don’t pass you. It’s a long, tedious journey, but about as convenient as a bus could be. On the outward trajectory I ride upstairs where knitting isn’t easy, but I manage a bit. Downstairs, on the way home – because it is dangerous to try to get down the stairs as the bus is hurtling down Broughton Street – knitting is easier. And I knit in the hospital when my husband is dozing.

Driving would be a bit quicker, but much more stressful, and also more expensive. Busses are free as I’m so old.