Another pretty good day. I am nearly finished with row 101 of the first two Cameron Shawl borders, counting back from 110. All is going reasonably well. 101 is the first decrease row – from now on I get to discard four stitches every right-side row. There were 458 of them to begin with, so every decrease is welcome.

And I also wrote a few paragraphs in Italian about Dante’s sonnets, although I have still to type them out and send them off so that Federica can read them before Saturday’s lesson. My sister’s husband is improving his French in classes at the retirement community where they live. He often has to prepare little talks for the group. I should engage in such struggles more often.

And I went for my walk, and remembered to put the bottles out for recycling (although Helen actually humped them down the steps).

I didn’t notice before I embarked on the current phase, but there are an awful lot of k3togs in the Cameron Shawl borders. That’s a slightly difficult manoeuvre to execute, and if you literally knit three together there is a real danger that the middle stitch will later escape, having bided its time. I always do it by putting the rh needle into the first two stitches as if to knit them together, slipping them, knitting the third stitch, passing the slipped stitches over. That way is safer, and has the additional advantage of making a centred decrease (remembering Margaret Stove’s dictum that the first stitch the needle enters, for any decrease, winds up on top).

Pandemic

Not much news on the coronavirus front today. If “CORVID-19” were its new proper name, it would perhaps imply a connection with crows which would seem rather doom-laden and appropriate, but you are right, Tamar, that there is no “r”. I gather there are lots of coronaviruses and it was necessary to be more specific. [“virus” is a very peculiar noun in Latin, practically in a category by itself, so “viri” as the plural, if you’re ever tempted, is wrong.]

Rachel’s son Joe – last year’s bridegroom – who works for English rugby, points out that France have already beaten Italy, so it is still possible for them to win the “grand slam” by beating every other nation, even though the tournament is thrown out of kilter by the cancellation of Ireland-Italy (and quite possibly Italy-England later on). France will play us here in Edinburgh at the end of next week. It’s always a good match.