Not much knitting, although the veil is now edged down one long side. Today I should turn eastwards along the bottom.

On Blogger's opening page there is a little box where the names of Blogs which have been recently updated scroll ceaselessly past. The number and variety is astonishing. Sometimes I click on a few.

That was how I found Swapna, a few days ago. She is writing a very moving and difficult account of her father’s final illness. If you visit her site, as I would strongly recommend, scroll down and start at the beginning. She hasn’t been doing it for very long – there are only three posts so far. She honoured me by visiting this blog yesterday, and leaving a comment admirous of my husband’s ankles.

I have also discovered in the same fashion Misadventurous Melissa, an attorney working as a nurse in California. She had this to say recently:

"Another one of the nurses in my hospital suffered a catastrophic stroke while at work a couple of months ago. He's just now starting to breathe on his own, but he is unable to communicate and no one really knows how much he understands. He's still in our ICU.This nurse is also the sole support of his quadriplegic wife, minor child and wheelchair-bound, seriously ill mother. Because he is no longer able to work, he was terminated, which also resulted in the loss of his health insurance. His family is now being sent massive bills for his hospitalization. Something just feels terribly wrong with that too. (And I thought that I had problems)"

As it happens, one of my long-standing regulars, dooce, wrote about health insurance yesterday, too. We grumble about the NHS when they are slow to get around to cataract operations. It is good to be reminded of the treasure we have.

Yesterday my husband and I went to visit an old friend, whose name was once as well known in Edinburgh as Magnus Linklater’s or Tim Clifford’s is today. He had a stroke some years ago, and also has Parkinson’s. He lived at home successfully for quite a while, but recently the nursing got to be too much for his 80-year-old wife, and he is now in a nursing home. He is virtually paralysed, slow of speech and thought, but perfectly clear. He said he wished it were over – he has nothing at all to live for.

I’ll aim for cheerfulness tomorrow.