The raspberries are here. And I think they’ll be happy enough, waiting a week. Their roots are in a little polythene bag with some soil, and they look pretty dormant. The weather, further north, continues to feature snow and sleet. We’re just as well waiting.

Princess

Thank you for the encouragement about my plans to sign and date the Princess, Stash Haus (and Cynthia, in a private message). I’d better get started on that chart. I think every other time I’ve signed and dated a shawl, it’s been one knit on what I think of as the Amedro System – knit the edging first, pick up stitches, knit the shawl inwards. This creates the delicious illusion that the work is going faster and faster – the very opposite of the Princess centre.

However, Bridget Rorem, understandably, gives her lacy alphabet right-way-up, and turning lace upside down is not as simple as, say, doing the same for a Fair Isle pattern. This time I’ll be knitting the letters right-way-up, which will simplify things considerably. She doesn’t venture on digits, but I have not found them difficult. The letter “O” will serve for “0” which is a good start.

I’ve reached row 15 of the 12th centre repeat. A productive day yesterday.

A random thought: there are dozens of small mistakes in the centre – fewer, I think, in the edging and border. They disappear, I fondly tell myself, in a project as huge as this. Whereas in something knit in larger wool, like Stash Haus’ beautiful Girasole, you can’t get away with that kind of sloppiness. Every stitch counts.

Miscellaneous

Fyberspates is coming to Edinburgh this weekend for a trunk show at K1 Yarns. They have gorgeous yarn. The centre of Edinburgh is a nightmare these days, due to an extraordinary ambition on the part of the city fathers to install a tram system, but I am tempted…

Personal

…the more so because of that alarming vision of myself in the mirror on Monday evening. I have digital bathroom scales which of late have been giving what is manifestly a falsely flattering result. Last night I picked them up and carried them from the bathroom, which is carpeted, to what we call the downstairs lavatory, which is not. I think they may now be telling the truth, and if so the answer is horrifying.

I can ask our friends to calibrate them, so to speak, when they are here at the weekend.

My diet is sensible, thanks to my husband’s diabetes. I hope the Lenten elimination of cider will have an effect without further effort. But energetic movement can’t hurt, either. No wonder I get breathless, trying to carry such a weight around in old age.