Much stress, yesterday. The quieter one's daily routine, the more upsetting disruption is.

First came my internet access problems. I could get through to Googlemail and receive and send messages, read the blogs that I subscribe to, look at the headlines. That is the internet: I was connected to it. But I couldn’t reach blogger.com or accuweather.com or jigzone.com. Trying to find something by Googling it produced a slightly funny-looking list from which none of the links worked.

I’ve never known such a state of affairs. Up until yesterday, the internet has either been there, or not.

All seems well this morning. I’ve put up yesterday’s blog. I had written it off-line, as usual.

These problems were rapidly overtaken by the death of my husband’s computer monitor. It had been poorly lately, and yesterday it wouldn’t go on at all. (I think something was loose in the on-off switch.)

He still uses Word Perfect on a machine running DOS. I was afraid that buying a replacement monitor for something so old would be impossible. However, I phoned (what turned out to be) a nice man who advertises in the local free paper. He told me, after some interrogation, that I needed a monitor with a VGA connection (D-sub) and that it would be easy to get one.

So I went to User2 (highly recommended) and bought a monitor. Alas, they had just sold their last really old one, with a foot of case behind the screen like an old television set. The newer one I wound up with is flat, but not distressingly rectangular, and it works fine. It was too bright and my husband said he would be blind by Monday, but I finally figured out how to dim it.

So all was well that ended well. But stressful.

The streets remained icy all day yesterday, and there has been more snow in the night. I can’t let my husband out to go to Mass today – he has trouble with balance at the best of times -- and will have to take care with walking myself.

No more news of C. She was taken to hospital by ambulance on a Thursday and they worked hard on the diagnosis right through the weekend, operating on Tuesday. So it would be no surprise if the test results turned up even today. We are scheduled to visit on Tuesday. I don't want that to be the day. She will want to be with her daughter then, not us.

As for knitting, I buckled down to the scarf. I should finish the third ball of Cocoon (of five) today. The current length is about 4’4”. And I haven’t forgotten that I need to re-do the cords that dangle down from the Japanese hat. Matt’s socks have reached the second heel-flap. Our trip to London next week should see them finished with ease.

I don’t see why I shouldn’t at least swatch for Round-the-Bend in 2010, maybe even cast it on.