Thank you for the responses about Walpole's poor cat. I can tell you that the lip of that vase is wide enough for a cat to perch on – especially once she knew that there were goldfish in there – but not to “recline” on.

There are a dozen things I want to say in response to your comments – saddest of all was yours, Susan, about “Jabberwocky” not being recognised. I have long thot that the Alice books are the last true bit of common culture left, Shakespeare and the King James Bible having followed Gray into the shadows long ago. Your comment inspired me to look it up in French, Gretchen. Clever.

(James took his son Alistair camping at Xanadu once – and I also know someone – an anthropologist -- who has been to Timbucktoo.)

Enough of this.

London was hard work, but very successful. (And, yes, we saw quite a few elephants.) My husband is pretty breathless these days, and can’t walk very far. Every journey had to be planned with that in mind. Rachel and Ed, despite heavy work schedules, were terrific about driving us about when they could.

And the Transport for London website, despite eccentricities, is good at revealing the possibilities for various journeys, and even pinpointing bus stops. The schematic information posted at bus stops is good, too. (I dread visiting Glasgow these days – a much smaller city, whose centre is a grid, where I find such information extremely hard to come by.)

We got through the shows on our list – it didn’t really include anything much out of the top drawer, for once, although there were a couple of Mondrians in the International Avant-Garde show at Tatmo. I think the show I liked best was Christen Kobke at the National Gallery. We didn’t get to the British Museum for the Kingdom of Ife and may have missed the best thing in London thereby. My husband is rather down on Van Gogh; hence his absence.

As for knitting, I polished off Ketki’s socks, as hoped, and sternly absented myself from Freecell long enough to do the ribbing – 50 rounds of it – for my husband’s new sock. Once that was done, my beloved Knit Picks took over the job. (That’s an American link, but they are available directly from British sellers too. I am eternally grateful to Kate for telling me about them.)


My current notion is to press on to finish this sock and do the ribbing of the second one, before reverting to the VK scarf. We hope to go to Loch Fyne for the next Bank Holiday at the end of the month to see the Loch Fyne Mileses and Alexander’s vegetables, and Rachel and Ed who hope to come up from London for the occasion. With the ribbing already done, a couple of days would be nearly enough to finish the socks.