I have rounded the corner and am half-way through the 5th scallop on the second side. This is going to take a while. It goes slightly faster now that I don’t have to keep peering at the book – it still lies open, close to hand, but I won’t need it there much longer. It is extraordinary how often I go slightly wrong and either (a) need to tink back a few stitches or (b) can’t remember where I am and what I’m supposed to do next. Even now, even when completely rested and sober and paying attention to what I’m doing.

Funeral arrangements seem to be going forward smoothly on all fronts – assuming my husband’s trousers come home today as arranged. My husband is to do a reading, something from the Book of Lamentations, so one of today’s jobs is to look it up. We have the reference, but not the text, and we have only old-fashioned bibles in this house, King James and Douai and the Vulgate. My husband says the numbering is often different.

What I want at my funeral is St Paul’s “Rejoice! Again I say to you, Rejoice!” I heard it at a funeral once, and thought it was sensational. But C. remained furious throughout at her cancer and at God for inflicting it on her, and it sounds as if readings have been chosen accordingly. Little C. will read something from Rilke, an author known to me only by name.

The party is to be at C.’s house, and in her beloved garden if the weather holds. Our niece has told the caterer to expect 65. (I would be doing well to muster half that number.) The notices were in both the Scotsman and the Times yesterday – easy to spot, if you still have the newspapers lying about, as C. used her maiden name.

Rachel’s son Joe, in his final weeks at Nottingham University, is having trouble getting a two-day extension on a vital essay so that he can come. A weepy girl classmate had just secured a whole fortnight’s extension for “stress” and Joe assumed he would have no trouble, but his tutor clearly regards “great-aunt’s funeral” as next door to spurious. He was told at one point that he would have to submit a death certificate and agree to counselling. He is appealing to a higher authority.

Rachel and Ed and all the rest of the family will be here by Sunday evening, so one of today’s jobs is to iron our one tablecloth.

Knitting

Both VK and Knitter’s have turned up in the last few days. The question looms: will I have the courage not to renew Knitter’s, as previously resolved? I have one more issue to go. There is even a pattern in this one in which I feel a transitory interest – the Cable-go-Round on page 56. Beyond that, everything seems predictable, dull, or bizarre; there is nothing to read except pages and pages of an interview with Debbie Macomber, who doesn’t interest me; and there’s all that X-type photography which continues to grate on my fragile nerves.

Whereas I wouldn’t dream of dropping VK, which has nothing whatsoever this time in which I have even a brief interest.

Tell me, who is StevenBe, the latest knitter in the Addi ad? We’ve had Franklin, I know who he is, and an LYS owner whose name I’ve forgotten. Perhaps he's just an aging pop star who happens to knit?