You’ve cracked it, Beverly. Of course, the Sayers character – it might have been Lord Peter himself – was coming out of the church when he turned right to avoid walking around it widdershins. Many thanks.

It has been suggested before, Ann, that I figure in Alexander McCall Smith’s pages. The long, windowless wall in the room in which I sit is part of Scotland Street. I will observe my dog-walking neighbours with more interest in the future. Any one of them might be fictional, too. A bit like Through the Looking-Glass.

I didn’t walk yesterday. As soon as I powered up, going clock-wise, the leg muscles protested, although I am comfortable enough tottering about during the day. I let myself out of the top gate and went on to the newsagent. Going clock-wise is going to be an Entirely Different Experience.

Knitting

More Amedro progress. The 7th pattern repeat is finished, a new page of text started. There are 11 repeats in all, not 10 as I have said here before. The decreases have started nibbling away at columns of the diamond motif, leaving only three columns intact in the centres of the wings.

I applied myself mentally to the Japanese instructions for that hat yesterday, and made much more progress than I might have expected. The Fair Isle part should be easy enough. I don’t quite get the beginning. The garter-stitch edging is knit downwards (from a provisional cast-on?) and appears to go around the ear-flaps, which is rather neat.

I was pretty slow to figure out that help may be available. All it needs is one English-speaking knitter, somewhere in the world, who understands this hat, and the chances are not bad at all that I can find her/him. I have posted the question to the Ravelry group, and have also joined a Japanese knitting group on Yahoo.

That reminds me of a final footnote to the jabot-knitting story. That problem was eventually solved exactly as above, by finding Joanie Newsome and the jabot pattern she offers free on Ravelry. The answer was, knit it in tiers. An alternative is to knit a single rectangle of lace and fold it in a way I had explained to me but never understood. Well, the footnote consists of the fact that an answer to that question is on page 47 of Starmore’s “Celtic Knitting”. The jabot there is crisp linen, not knitting, but the fold is illustrated clearly enough.

I think. But I’m not going back there. I found the illustration when I was revving up for my class with Starmore at the I Knit weekend.

This morning’s excitement is getting my husband to an early, for him, appointment with our practice nurse to find out how his thyroid and blood pressure and such-like are getting on. I’ll take Matt’s socks along.