It’s still very cold. We’ve decided against Strathardle for today, on various grounds: my husband doesn’t want to risk tracking snow into his new garden shed and leaving it to form puddles on the floor. And I’m scared of getting bogged down in snow, and begrudge the effort of getting there if I can’t do anything in my garden.

Maybe a couple of nights next week if things improve. Lorna sent me an absolutely brilliant weather-forecasting link in a comment yesterday. The long-term prospects don’t look very good either.

That yarn still hasn’t turned up.

Calcutta Cup knitting

My sister has been staying with Rachel and her family, en route from Africa to CT. She may even have been there on Saturday itself. She wrote this yesterday: “I wanted to let you know that it really does sound as though Ogdens and Ogdens-to-be would be very actively discouraged from (? forbidden) wearing a wedding shawl with the Calcutta cup and the year 2006 in it.” I tried to reply, but comcast.net has declared me non grata.

We’re taking this a bit too seriously. Nobody’s engaged, and the shawl won’t be finished for quite a while. I suspect that once the first paroxysms of grief are over, and the Cup has been won by England for seven or eight straight years, its presence on the shawl will be regarded as a harmless eccentricity on Grandmother’s part. The shawl is in garter stitch and will be completely reversable, except for “2006”. Ogden ladies could wear it inside out.

But I am hugely taken with Kate’s suggestion, in another comment yesterday, that I just knit “2006” and an elephant, and leave the cup itself out. I spent some time a moment ago Googling on “lacey knit elephant” with very little success. But I did find a pattern for crocheting one in filet lace. Something might be done with that. Filet lace is like the cross on the recently-completed First Holy Communion veil, where a solid image floats on a net background. I’ve printed it out.

And if the worst happens and the shawl is spurned, I’ve got plenty of other grandchildren. Here, reproduced verbatim, is an exchange of emails which took place in February, 2002, between me and my two younger children:

“The Calcutta Cup is being contested again this Saturday, here in Edinburgh.

“The Scotsman ran one of those lottery things, twice this week, where you ring up an expensive telephone number and answer an idiotically easy question. (“Who scored all of Scotland’s points in their Calcutta Cup victory in 2000?”) The prize was two tickets to Saturday’s match. I entered. I won.

“It is the sort of thing that makes one wonder whether there might not actually be a God in heaven after all, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

“Daddy is happy enough to come along, but asked over lunch, Who will be playing whom? How many of you could answer that question?”

Son-in-law David replied from Thessaloniki:

“Congratulations. Who is playing whom? I assume we are talking about rugby.”

And James, from Beijing:

“At least Daddy knows it involves players. When I saw the subject of your message, I thought, is she interested in yachting as well?”