It has been a day of unsurpassed idleness, but I have at least bound off the back of the baby sweater, after some nifty short-rowing, and retrieved the stitches for the front. All is well.

Jenny, the point of my using the Millarochy colours as a “repeating group of 15” in the Dathan hap – a most useful phrase – was just that that seemed the best way of not-quite-ensuring that I wouldn’t run out of any of them. And I didn’t, even with those tremendously long rows at the end. The yardage is generous.

Tom contributes a not uninteresting post to the KD blog today, but this ostentatious refusal to give us the slightest hint about Kate’s condition -- on his part, and that of the staff member who’s learning to knit -- is becoming rather irritating.

Non-knit

Mary Lou, I am quite seriously worried about your remark that you found “A Gentleman in Moscow” here on this blog. You don’t actually say that – you say “thanks to…” I’ve looked it up. It was clearly last year’s sensation – there is even a book about it, for use with one’s book group. But I have no memory of ever having heard of it, let alone read it. I am sparing in my acquaintance with books-set-in-foreign-countries so I think I would remember. (I don’t count the US or India as foreign, and I’ll go anywhere with John LeCarre.) Please reassure me if you can.

Meanwhile I have added it to my list. It does sound good. I like Julian Barnes – Kirsten, should I add “The Only Story” to that list?

“Daniel Deronda” has picked up a bit, although it’s still awfully wordy. At the moment, it looks like turning into a proto-Zionist tract which is certainly an unexpected development.