I’ve just spent a busy half-hour on paper work, and brought the balancing of bank statements up-to-date, in respect for my friend’s calamity. Thank you for yesterday’s comments – I had never thought of cheques as particularly unsafe; the newspaper articles concentrate on cards. I write very few cheques nowadays, never on the fly. (My husband carries one as a back-up.) I use a debit card for purchases on the hoof, and pay many bills from home by electronic transfer.

I suspect that despite the greatly reduced volume of cheques these days, banks are less careful than they used to be about scrutinising them – they’ll just be whipped through some machine.

I spoke to C. on the telephone yesterday. She sounded much more cheerful. She has seen a lot of her bank manager lately in connection with all the business attendant upon a death, and feels secure and confident with her. She has spoken to her son in Singapore, her only close blood relative; that buoyed her up, I think.

Knitting

I’m thoroughly bored of the scarf, to use a family idiom. It’s now 5 ½ feet long. I think I’ll devote some of today’s knitting time to finishing it off. I wish it were a bit wider, but making it longer is not going to help with that problem.

When it’s done, I’ll bundle it up and send it to Theo in Denver, with the idea that he can give it to Mr Obama for his wife on the occasion of the promised photo session, Theo in his cashmere gansey in the summer heat. If the idea proves too excruciatingly embarrassing, Theo can just keep it for his girl friend Tiger.

I’ll also send a page of my untidy and largely incomprehensible notes for the construction of the sweater, on which can be inscribed The Autograph.

It will be totally impossible to begin to explain to Mr Obama how that sweater has helped his campaign. It might be worth while, though, or at any rate amusing, now that the hoped-for issue has become a real possibility, to collect the blog references to it. I could print them out and file with the The Autograph when I get it. We certainly hatched the idea in the first half of ’07, back when Mrs Clinton was “inevitable”.

And now I must order that yarn for the dinosaurs.