I might even finish the edging of the mourning shawl today.

Otherwise, little to report. I phoned our local B&Q, hoping that a gnome or two might linger. The nice young man who answered sounded surprised, and said that they had never sold any such thing. Perhaps the higher-ups at B&Q consider Royal Naff as not-quite-Edinburgh.

On the Japanese shirt front, I am waiting for news from Loop – they are expecting more Madeleine Tosh yarn “in April”. They have promised to phone, but I look at the website most days anyway. This morning, when I tried to go there to include a link, the website seems to be down -- maybe they are updating it.

I haven’t yet got Starmore out to address the question of an Aran sweater for my Games entry.

And that’s about it.

Non-knit

We are having an election to the Scottish parliament next month, even more tedium-inducing than the royal wedding. The Big News yesterday was a survey on the subject of issues which people felt were important, or didn't: with prompt access to a specialist when cancer was suspected, coming out near the top of the list.

C. had that, and a fat lot of good it did her. The specialist – at the Western Infirmary, which is Edinburgh’s leading cancer hospital – did an inadequate examination and sent her away with the assurance that she didn’t have cancer. He suggested that a colonoscopy might be a good idea in six weeks time or so, when someone or other got back from holiday. That was in early October. She was diagnosed a month later when she was taken in by ambulance as an emergency. Cancer was all over the shop, by then. The operation was on 9/11, British style.

Oddly, to my mind, no blame seems to have attached to that silly man in all the anger which has swirled around since, directed at God and at the blameless GP. I don’t suppose the outcome would have been much different, but she would have been spared the suffering she went through in October, which was considerable. When someone brings my husband a picture to consider, the first thing he does is look at it. C. had lost a lot of weight by early October. She was skilful at dressing to conceal the fact, but a cancer specialist is meant to be able to look, just as my husband is in his different way. And weight-loss is a major symptom, I gather, of almost all cancers.

I’ve probably said all this. By now, I am as cross at C. and her daughters for not being cross at that specialist, as I am at the man himself.

Today I composed a web page in MS Word and then, here on Blogger, worked on the "Edit HTML" page. So far, I haven't had to replace any paragraph breaks -- but the final "Publish Post" hurdle remains.