You win some, you lose some.

Yesterday began well, with a New Low (for ’09) at the morning weigh-in: V stone 11 ¾. I started off, early in Lent, at X stone 12, so it is now really true that I have lost two stone, although I have been claiming it for a while. I sort of feel that my ideal weight might be somewhere around V stone 7 – below that lies scrawniness. Back up to V stone 13 ¼ this morning – that’s the way it goes.

And the day continued well. I screwed my courage to the sticking point and filed our income tax return on-line. We are owed a small refund. That is because our income has declined in these hard times, but still it’s better than not getting a small refund.

However. Before we went to Strathardle last week, I left the income tax papers in neat piles on the sideboard in the dining room, each pile topped by a freshly-minted print-out summarising the results. When I went in to get started yesterday, I found the piles damp and wrinkled. Water had fallen on them. Through the ceiling. There was no other possible source.

That involved the nice G’s upstairs again, whose baby son Alexander died earlier this year. Much of the rest of the day was devoted to the problem. You never know, with water, but at least they are concerned and working on it. Their bathroom is above our dining room. They are going to the Royal Infirmary today for a conference with senior doctors about genetic incompatibility and the prospects for future babies.

(The G’s come into the category of people for whom I would break the yarn fast and knit a Tulip Jacket, if another pregnancy is forthcoming.)

Knitting

I discovered an interesting thing, when I resumed ASJ-knitting after the Strathardle break: a whole row of st st in the midst of all the garter. I’ve left it, and it doesn’t worry me. It’s in the skirt part – I think it would look a lot worse in a vertical stripe during the mitreing bit. I don’t think I’m going to be able to photograph it, even.

But how did it happen? There are only two possibilities:

1) that I knit two consecutive rows from the same end. In order to do that, I would have had to detach and re-attach the yarn. That manifestly didn’t happen. So what must have happened is that

2) I did 294 purl stitches without noticing what I was doing. Incredible.

Speaking of leaving things: the ear-flap hat has a hem, and one is told to do it by folding the hem inside and knitting one stitch from the cast-on edge with one stitch on the needle, all the way around. I know perfectly well that I am incapable of doing that sort of thing on the wing (i.e., without picking up all the stitches in advance and carefully counting them) but I tried, and it came out more than a bit skewed.

I went forward for a whole inch and more, telling myself that it would smooth out in the blocking, before ripping back and leaving the hem hanging. I did it with a needle at the end. It looks fine, smooth as a millpond.

So I am capable of ripping, when it has to be done. When in doubt, take it out, is a good rule of life. I’m not in doubt about leaving the ASJ with its odd mistake.