There is little to report. I am still feeling weak and slightly nauseous, although no longer being treated by a doctor for anything. My goat’s milk kefir is here, and I love it. The first bottle I opened was not explosive, but I will continue to approach them all with caution. The idea is to drink a glass of it first thing in the morning so that it will descend forthwith to the gut and get to work on the microbiome. It’s all right to go on drinking it through the day, but it’s expensive, so I won’t.

Catmum, I’m not a tea-drinker so I don’t think kombucha is going to be my thing. I will get some at the supermarket this week, if they have it, but won’t embark on making it.

Janet and Mary Lou, one of the great things about cookery on YouTube is that you soon discover that different people have different ways of doing things. Once I’ve got my things together, I think I’ll start with Jamie Oliver’s kimchi recipe, because I’m fond of him. I’ve scarcely moved from my easy chair these last few days, but I did nip down to Tesco’s yesterday and the Post Office seized the opportunity to leave one of those “We tried to deliver…” cards. Kimchi equipment already?

I have done some knitting. I have done the simple arithmetic, and cast on the 2^nd attempt at a Calcutta Cup vest. I did it Gudrun’s way, alternating 2 long-tails with 2 twisted Germans. I intended to join it at once – I have festooned it with safety pins, in the hopes of preventing the fatal twist. That’s a tip I read somewhere recently. But I discovered when I was 20 stitches into the round that I had done it the familiar way through force of habit – turning back on myself, leaving the ends unconnected. I didn’t frog it.

Non-knit, and completely irrelevant

I found myself thinking, the other evening, as one does, of a girl who was in my year at Asbury Park High School. Her name was Thalia Heliotis. She was beautiful, and much admired, and we didn’t move in the same circles. I remember very few other names from those years, but that one stuck. I remember hearing somehow that she had had a spectacular Greek Orthodox wedding not long after graduating from high school.

I googled her, expecting nothing, but there she is. Her husband died a few years ago, and her maiden name is mentioned in his obituary. They had 63 years, which is pretty good going.

The odd thing, though, is that Google also found a picture of her in the Asbury Park Press in the spring of 1949, our junior year. A picture with me, along with three other people whose names mean nothing to me now. Some sort of cake sale? Thalia and I seem to be buying or selling something. I cannot now imagine any extracurricular activity which would have brought us together. You have to subscribe to read the caption of the picture in full, and I doubt if it would help.

“Thalia” is one of the nine muses. I didn’t know that at the time. It’s a beautiful name.