A new follower! I am back to my previous total! An auspicious way to begin what is likely to be a tough 48 hours.

Here we are. No blog tomorrow, and probably not Tuesday, either, as I make bacon and eggs for people who will spend the day on the road.

I am increasingly gripped by apprehension. I am nearly 78 and have only once before been intimately involved in a funeral – that was for Helen and David’s son Oliver who died at 6 ½ weeks. As Helen herself said when she was here last weekend, we didn’t really know him. Both of my parents were carried from deathbed to crematorium without benefit of clergy, as I gather is not uncommon in the US. Both had outlived themselves, anyway – they were in their 90’s with few surviving friends or colleagues or family of their own generation, their minds fogged with age and medication, in the care of strangers. My brother died young, but I was substantially pregnant with Alexander at the time and thousands of miles away: I didn’t go to the funeral.

I’ve been to funerals, of course, of people I have loved and mourned. But tomorrow will be a new experience in many ways.

Helen phoned from Pelion late in the afternoon about flowers. I had completely forgotten. The information – name of undertaker and florist – was there by the telephone. I had asked my husband a few days before what he wanted on the card. Then I forgot. But it wasn't too late. Thank God for Helen.

The seamstress came back with my husband’s trousers. He hasn’t tried them on yet, but they look fine. And I think we have partially solved the mystery of her grandmother, the orphan who was taken in by my husband’s grandparents’ family. The seamstress’ grandmother’s maiden name was Nisbit, no resonance there, but the seamstress’ great-grandmother’s maiden name – the mother of the orphaned child – was Grieg. That was also the maiden name of my husband’s grandmother, Alexander Miles’ wife. My husband and the seamstress must be related somehow or other. James, the keeper of the family genealogies, suggests in an email this morning that they are second cousins twice removed. But there is clearly more work for him to do here.

Knitting

I got quite a bit of edging done yesterday while waiting anxiously for the trousers. Sixteen and ½ scallops (of 21) finished on the second edge – another good day’s knitting, which won’t happen today or tomorrow, should carry me around the second corner.

And Joe’s sock is within a round or two of its heel flap.

And I heard from Franklin, who thinks I will be bored by a day of Tomten. I can imagine few pleasanter ways to spend one.