I have let my attention wander – little time left for prose.

I have no more news of Alexander G., and probably won’t have any until I meet him one day in his pram or read his death notice in the Scotsman. Or until the ceiling of the Downstairs Lavatory comes down. My husband remains agitated.

I am halfway through repeat no. 28 of the Princess top edging, and am beginning to hope, after all, that I might get pretty close to the centre before June dawns and I must stop in favour of Games-knitting. Things went well yesterday (somewhat more than two repeats) until the very end, when some stitches came off at the outer edge and were very clumsily recovered.

I think the moral probably is, not to try to knit the Princess late in the evening, even if no cider has passed my lips for several days.

I thought about un-knitting several rows. It wasn’t laziness that made me press on, but a real fear that I would make things worse. There are a lot of k3togs in this fiendish pattern – they are not easy to unpick. And figuring out exactly where one is in the pattern, wouldn’t be easy either.

When I succeeded in getting the right number of stitches back on the needle, the horror manifested itself in the form of two seriously over-large holes. I think I was right to fiddle things around and diminish them.



The bad spot is in the most recent trough – the spot where the stitch number is lowest. You can see clearly enough that there is something different there. But I’m not sorry to have pressed on. It’s not going to bother me.

Now, what I’d like today (apart from a long-overdue washing-machine repair) is that sock yarn I ordered.

Non-knit

I went back to East yesterday and bought an embroidered linen coat-thing to wear over the dress I am planning to wear to the wedding itself. I am rather pleased with the effect – it sort of draws attention away from the vast expanse of stomach beneath. It’s lined, and so is the dress – I will have to hope for cooling breezes from the Sound that day. At the rehearsal dinner, au contraire, I will have nothing between me and the elements except my kurta, and will have to hope for swelter.

That’s enough for finery. I still need restraining underwear and a hat and a golf shirt and a wedding present and maybe a cheap all-purpose jacket with pockets.

East is very pleasant, and seems well-populated even in these hard times. I do not feel, there, that I have come to an Old Ladies’ Shop, nor that I am 50 years older than the next oldest customer. And the staff are agreeable, helpful and un-pushy.