Dear Kirsten, yes! I would very much like to join a Lenten retreat based on “In This House of Brede”. It is a remarkable book, which I have read very recently – I would have said, this year, but I am keeping a list and it doesn’t appear, so it must have been last year. Never mind. Please sign me up, or pass on the link, as appropriate.

I appreciate your solicitude for your cat. I hope the cat does. All three of us sleep together these days – Paradox on her folded blanket at the foot of the bed, Perdita next to me. I establish myself well towards the centre of the bed when I first compose myself for sleep, cat-less. When I get up to pee, there is Perdita. And when I come back to bed, I am convinced she has moved nearer the edge. It is difficult to lie down around her, and I am afraid of falling out, and there is an icy blast down my spine – but that’s fine, if she is comfortable.

I dug into my Koigu collection today. I think I could assemble a dark-and-light palette for that shawl – I am thinking of Unjung Yun’s “Two-Color Brioche Shawl” in the Early Winter ’18 VK. But you have to cast on an awful lot of stitches and knit for a very long time. I’ll see what the stash can offer in the Pollywog line, tomorrow.

And there’s still KD’s Dathan hap. I do love those stripes.

Meanwhile I have almost finished the Foldlines square. My first attempt, some months ago, on a 3.75mm needle, was too big. This one, using 3.5mm, is substantially smaller, measured only by eye. The trouble with my plan of buying Arbor from Jared’s own hands, is that I am swatching with madtosh DK.

Reading

I am nearly finished  “The Good Solider” and keenly await “Anne of Green Gables”. In my childhood, for an unremembered reason, I began with “Emily of New Moon”, a later Montgomery. I remember wondering how that word was pronounced. I worked out something along the lines of Mon-te-go-merry.