Tennis: well, there we are. Murray is not going to be an on-going multiple winner, a McEnroe or Becker or Connors. Those guys get to the top fast. And its his bad luck that the very top is currently and for the forseeable future occupied by a man who may well be the greatest tennis player ever. But stuff happens. Murray may be the best that Great Britain has ever produced, and it would be nice to see him win a big one. It’ll have to be soon, before he’s overtaken by the thundering herd of 18-year-olds.

Southern Gal, it was from your comment that I learned the result. We had to leave for Mass as that tie-break was in progress. I can’t bear tie-breaks anyway, and it was obvious how the match was going to end. If it had turned out to be the five-set humdinger that the first six or seven games seemed to promise, my husband would have had to make his way up the hill alone.

I didn’t do any of the things yesterday that I promised here, such as starting the ear-flap hat and photographing the Grandson Sweater in full daylight. We’ll see what I can achieve on the front step in a moment. I continue to whiz along – so fast that I wondered if there is not something to be said for rigid metal needles. Think of the women of Shetland with their knitting pouches. Think of the eccentric way Annie Modesitt knits, if you’ve ever been lucky enough to witness that.

It’s a nuisance, of course, to have to keep stopping to change needles. But the stitches flow. On a circular – I’ll have to change over today – I have to keep stopping to push them around.

I think I’m going to run out of sleeve just a bit before I have increased all the stitches the pattern specifies. I’m not going to worry (=not going to increase the rate of increasing). There will clearly be plenty of stitches, and the great thing about cutting the armholes open is that the size of the hole can be accommodated to the size of the finished sleeve.

Not bad, for light. That bottom ribbing is up to its old tricks.

Harlequin: alerted by your most recent comment (Friday the 29th), Theresa, I had a closer look at the gauge information. Oof. Four needle sizes are employed – part of the shaping is achieved by using ever smaller ones. The “gauge mitre” and the gauge information in the sidebar are based on the second-largest needle. But the garment starts with the largest size, and it is not at all clear how to extrapolate. How big are the initial mitred squares meant to be? (About six inches, is my current guess.) Whatever the answer, it is a corner-to-corner measurement. Am I actually going to have to calculate the Square on the Hypotenuse, to figure out how many stitches to cast on?

I will in fact take a running jump, and see how the first few squares work out.

That leaves the pronunciation of “often” for subsequent discussion. I haven’t forgotten.

Barbara, thank you for your extraordinarily kind comment yesterday.