The weather here has been sublime, a rare coincidence with a major holiday. (The English take Easter tremendously seriously, although not particularly religiously. It’s the first big bank holiday break after the long winter. Scotland doesn’t get quite so excited about it.) Archie and I got some gardening done on the front step this morning – a “patio courgette” sown, and some lettuce, and the quince tree manured. Slower and harder work than it sounds. And the sun was warm on my shoulders.

And it’s apple blossom time in Drummond Place. I meant to take some pictures for you – hope to do it tomorrow.

I had a very pleasant Easter, too, yesterday, with Helen and Archie and Fergus and a seriously delicious free-range chicken. I can’t easily figure out how to enable the Greek alphabet in order to show you the traditional Easter greeting which Helen and I exchanged. Except that the Greek Easter is still nearly a week away.

It was the Queen’s birthday yesterday. She’s 93. My husband, had he lived, would have been 94 in November.

I’ve finished knitting the jumper-weight edging for my Shetland hap class, and very much prefer it to my first attempt in lace-weight. I don’t know whether to bind it off or not. For the moment I will lay such thoughts aside and get started on a swatch for Thomas Miles’ Calcutta Cup ’19 scarf. It will be the first time (and almost certainly the last) in which I have been called on for Calcutta Cup knitting in an odd-numbered year.

Reading

I’ve whizzed through a thriller recommended by the Financial Times: Simon Beckett, “The Chemistry of Death”. Good, but I don’t think I’ll go on with him. Too many maggots. I must get back to “Cousin Henry” and to thinking about Wilkie Collins.