Christina is getting better – thank you for your good wishes. I had been very worried. She is in a private room – even that had worried me – and as soon as we found it, and caught a glimpse of her through the window, reclining on the bed and chatting with friends, we knew that the crisis had passed. No oxygen, no antibiotic drips.

She still sounds (as she did ten days ago) like someone with a very bad cold. She says she’s very weak – no surprise. She thinks maybe they’ll release her today and let her come back for the bronchoscopy as an out-patient.

So that’s that, for the moment.

The next issue looming is that my husband doesn’t want to go to Strathardle just now; he wants to stay here and work. So I plan to attempt a series of day-trips, starting I hope tomorrow. If I don’t turn up here, you’ll know I’ve gone. I ought to be able to do three or four hours’ gardening and be back in time for tea. He meanwhile ought to be able to totter out and find a lunch-time sandwich for himself.

The courgettes, to begin with, are ready to start real life (protected by sawn-off water bottles). They will be the only courgettes in the glen with the personal endorsement of Franklin Habit. I don’t know quite what Dolores would think – sometimes at this time of year we see a few sheep and their children looking over the dyke: “Those are Mrs Miles’s vegetables, dear. Next week I’ll take you round by the burn. There’s bound to be something good.”

And then, of course, it’s time to get the seeds in. In London, it’s already summer, and too hot, roses even. Here – and all the more, in Perthshire – spring is still fresh, with the trees not yet in full leaf. A magical moment.

I should finish Thomas’s socks today. I’m pleased with them, and plan to retain the ribbed format for gents’ socks in the future. K6, p2 is not as much fun as whizzing round and round in st st, but it’s not too bad. For the second sock, I reverted to knitting the foot on four needles (instead of five) with the ribbed top-of-foot stitches all together on one needle, occasionally falling off one end or the other. That seems faster and pleasanter than separating them.




Next is Cathy, who has opted for KF.

I noticed when I was darning Rachel’s socks, some of which are pretty old, that a couple of them had tried to pull apart sideways, along the line of the gusset decreases – and always on the infamous Second Side (=right-hand side, I think, when you’re wearing the sock). Maybe I had better get the books out and look at alternative heels.