Roger and Helen spent last night on the shore of Loch Fyne, after what I trust proved a happy afternoon messing around in Alexander’s new boat. They’ll be back here soon, I hope with pictures, and today’s plan is to aim for Jupiter Artland with a picnic (and a camera).

Roger and I – Roger, in particular – spent a good whack of time on Wednesday afternoon trying to install the wireless router James bought for us a year ago. It would have been a great triumph to succeed where James had failed, but we didn’t, despite phone calls to the ISP and a re-setting of my password and much fear that I would find myself cut off from the world altogether. James thinks I should abandon my ISP and switch to British Telecom.



Knitting

I have finished the third rank of Green Granite Blocks, and am most of the way across the next Slow Row, setting colours for Rank # 4. Again, I’ll delay the photograph until I’ve done a few more rows and the three completed ranks can be seen in all their glory. And that probably won’t happen today, after an afternoon of art.

I continue more and more uneasy about Knit Camp, and may decide not to go which would be a great waste of money. The impression one gets on the Ravelry website is of hair-tearing. I learned just now that classes are removed from the website when they are sold out – that doesn’t seem to include either of mine, Franklin on photography and Donna Druchunas on Japanese Knitting. And with their removal goes any reference to preparatory homework.

The chief hair-tearer says that the information will all come back soon in PDF form.

I have been to two Camp Stitches on the shore of Lake George, oh! happy memories, and one Stitches East. Little as one loves “the X’s”, I never felt adrift like this in the anticipatory weeks. I think it was a great mistake on the part of the hair-tearers not to send a single sheet of paper, in the mail, to each camper acknowledging payment, confirming classes and dates, specifying what you needed to bring and do for each class, and perhaps including a map of the Stirling campus. Computers should have been able to do the work: it wouldn’t have taken much of human money or time.

On the other hand, my husband is beginning to talk of another trip to London. I am very keen not to have it happen in July or August, so I am glad to have Knit Camp in position to use as a counterweight if necessary.

Salsola soda

Here’s where we are so far. Seeds keep coming up, in the form of spindly stems, and then collapsing as if damping off before they’ve even started. No cotyleda, even. Perhaps it’s not exactly poor germination salsola soda suffers from, but a lack of life skills. As well as the two little green plants you can see – assuming they’re not passing weeds – there are three spindly stems which haven’t yet collapsed and which seem to be evidencing seed leaves. And it’s only 10 days since the seeds went in – there may be more to come.