Judith, thanks for the link to the Ravelry discussion of “Knits from the North Sea” (comment yesterday). Definitely no, is my decision.

However, I find myself intrigued by references to Margaret Leask Peterson, the co-author. She lives on Unst and is said (by DCN, a non-knitter, in a review of the book on American Amazon) to be “unquestionably the most respected living knitter”. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of her, and can’t find any other information, in a brief session with Google – just endless references to the book. With which, apparently, she had little to do. Some of the contributors to the Ravelry discussion might be able to tell me more.

I continued to feel, yesterday, that I craved self-indulgence. Something to do with entering upon this most depressing quadrant of the year? I hesitated with the pointer over “one-click ordering” on the Amazon page for Isager’s “Japanese Inspired Knits” and then decided, no, much more sensible to get a Japanese book – which? – and do this properly.

I settled for pre-ordering Lynn Barr’s “Reversible Knitting”, due on October 1 so there’s not long to wait; and “Knitted Lace Designs of Herbert Neibling” from Schoolhouse Press.

Actual knitting went well enough, as I pressed forward with the second half of the Griswold stole.

Weight-loss

A boring subject, but I don’t want it to drop out of sight altogether as (ahem) seems to have happened with Joe. He lost ten pounds earlier in the year and looked the better for it, at a time when I had lost about that much and looked exactly the same. But he hasn’t mentioned the matter since.

I started at X stone 12, early in March. (Part of the routine is a morning weigh-in, with the result recorded in my electronic Filofax.) I was hovering around W and ½ stone – W stone 7 pounds -- when I went off to Theo’s wedding in July. That did me no harm, and neither did 10 ciderous days leading up to the Games in August.

Then I resumed the Regime (cider only on Sunday, no sugar, careful with fat) and, rather to my surprise, resumed weight-loss. I’m now hovering around W stone 0, keen to break through that barrier.

I lived like this once before, in 2006. On Wednesday, September 27 of that year I weighed in at V stone 11 ¾. And fell and broke my left arm and abandoned sobriety.

So I don’t know whether I will be capable of maintaining the Regime through the three grim months ahead. I can live without chocolate cake indefinitely, I think, but braised sausages, bread and peanut butter and cider are different matters altogether, as darkness closes in.