A new follower!

So we’re off. If we can stand it, we’ll be away until the end of next week.

As hoped, the dots have been placed on the 5th rank of green granite blocks – it’s a good place to stop.

Our dentist keeps good time, and his office is so near that there’s no need to arrive early, so I didn’t get much sock-knitting done yesterday. I think I’ll take them along to Strathardle, pushing the poor old Araucania sweater which lives there even further down the queue. I’m well along the foot of the second sock, and I’m getting tired of them.

Thanks to yesterday’s commenters, Sister Helen and Meg, for ideas for the expected lettuce-glut. Wilted lettuce salad sounds a very interesting idea – I’m sure I can find a bacon dressing for it in cyber-space, and we’ve got good bacon in Perthshire.

I have a living-in-Italy book for you on the tip of my mind, so to speak -- a reference to a remark in Meg's fascinating blog. I hope I’ll recover enough detail to recommend it specifically – maybe quicker to look for my own copy. Set in the 40’s, decaying castles and, even then, good food. Author’s name begins with K I think.

Got it: “A Tuscan Childhood” by Kinta Beevor. I remembered that I gave it to someone for Christmas once, and found it by digging out my invaluable Excel spreadsheet called “Xmas” and unhiding columns for Christmasses past, and then unhiding rows for loved-ones dead. There it was. Good book.

Yesterday afternoon I went to John Lewis and bought a slow cooker for Strathardle. There isn’t room for one in the kitchen here, and it’ll be more use there anyway. Rachel seems to be having a good time with the one I gave her recently. I got an even bigger one for us, on Greek Helen’s recommendation.

The operation involved parking in a multi-level Stygian car park with lost souls wandering about looking for the way out. Never again, if it can be avoided. But I succeeded.