Here we are, very tired, but it was a successful week.

The ditch wasn’t running – bizarre, for November. Maybe somebody up the hill has diverted it for a water feature? Time will soon tell.

So instead of forking wadges of leaf from the depths, we were able to make bonfires of them in the dry channel, and cart others away in sacks. Still hard work, but much more fun.

I made a good start on the Araucania sweater. It’s perfect country knitting at this stage, as easy to do as a garter stitch scarf while one snoozes by the fire. Nice to handle, nice to look at.

It is shewn hanging on the remains of a damson tree. It never bore a single damson, and was getting far too big for the site. Pruning just seemed to encourage it. We'll have to get rid of the remains before spring, or it'll be at it again.

There was not much time for vegetable gardening, but I did a simple soil test and it came out a bit on the acid side, so I spread some lime. And made a good start on that happiest of gardening jobs, reading the seed catalogues and making lists.

Here’s what the garden looked like yesterday morning, as if God had been spreading lime..

Last night, back here, I tottered on with an Earth Stripe or two. I am wondering whether I’ll have time to knit Jared's hat in cashmere Koigu before Christmas, to go with the Shapely Shawlette. That’s the Koolhaus pattern in the IK Holiday Knits issue. Mel has finished his.

The first three Vogue Knitting Books, "hand bound into a folder", with covers removed, fetched a fancy price on eBay yesterday, but not nearly as fancy a one as they might have been expected to fetch separately, with their covers. I've got all three, so I didn't need to agonise over that one.