I have been moved by all your messages. You guys are good friends.

Our niece and her daughter Little C. came by yesterday – after registering the death at offices not far from here – to talk about the funeral. Would we have been so considerate of them if death had taken brother and sister in the more expected order? We settled on Monday at noon, ideal for us; they phoned both the priest and the undertaker from here and met no difficulties. It seems by now that this is also OK with the other two daughters.

Greek Helen is not coming after all – the expense and the need for her husband to take two more “family days” leave to cover for her sort of piled up against the idea. Neither is James. But Rachel will have three or even all four of her children with her, and Alexander and Ketki will come from Loch Fyne so we will have a considerable presence.

AND my husband agreed to try on The Suit, instead of waiting to stage a crisis on Monday morning. The jacket is still fine, but the trousers are seriously too small around the middle. A totally unknown seamstress is coming to collect them this morning, with the promise of having them back by the weekend. There isn’t enough fabric in the generous seam to accommodate his current girth – she’s got a job on her hands.

I’ll take my camera along on Monday. I won’t guarantee to use it.

From memory, Emily Dickinson:

The bustle in the house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth.

The sweeping out the heart
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.

Knitting

I had some pictures taken of Round-the-Bend while the house was full on Saturday. It’s really quite a success, although I wonder if I’ll wear it much.

And the shawl edging goes forward. This is going to be another watching-paint-dry episode in the history of blogging, but if we got through the Princess we ought to be able to manage this one.

The big knitting news is in some danger of getting lost in the sadness of the last few days – namely Helen C.K.S.’s pointer, in her comment on Saturday’s post, to Fleegle’s solution to the (considerable) problem of how to knit garter stitch in the round. Helen has no peer when it comes to knowledge of the resources of the Internet, nor Fleegle when it comes to knitterly cleverness.

I’ve bookmarked it but haven’t thought it all the way through yet. Goodness! will I even have to make a little swatch? But it’s clearly the Way to Go.