I’ll revert to my original system of composition, and hope Blogger has pulled itself together in the intervening week.

We had a grand time in Strathardle, with lovely spring weather except for one day. Our niece joined us on Thursday evening – it wasn’t so bad, leaving yesterday, with someone there to enjoy it, as she was clearly doing.

A happier picture of her and my husband than the last one you saw. Here they are discussing possible walks.

Little C. will come up today – she (like Joe Ogden) is in the last weeks of her university career, and hesitated to come if we couldn’t offer internet access. We have wi-fi, in fact – but I was afraid it might be protected by a password known only to the man in Beijing who installed the system.

But it isn’t. Our niece’s computer found the “Burnside network” at once, and happily connected to it when encouraged by a couple of clicks. That means that I could use our recent income tax rebate to get myself a brand-new laptop, and it would be as wonderful as hers, and I wouldn't need James's help to get it going.

And I wasn’t too late to start on this year’s gardening.

Before:

After:

I got a lot done – not nearly as much as I would have liked to do, that goes without saying. The soil was surprisingly warm and workable. I planted ten potatoes at the end, and a small square of radishes. It is particularly gratifying, gardening in April, because jobs stay done at least for a little while.

Knitting

I fell upon the Araucania sweater with my newly-rekindled enthusiasm intact, and have nearly finished the first sleeve. It has been a long time since I set a shaped sleeve top into a shaped sleeve hole and I am not entirely looking forward to the experience.

The Games programme is out – the knitting classes are “A Dressed Doll” [absolutely not] and “Aran Sweater – any size”. I’ll go for that – I’m thinking vaguely Mungo. I’m a bit worried about time – Joe’s 21st birthday socks have to be finished for his 21st birthday, in July, and I don’t want the mourning shawl to drag on for too long. I’ll be better able to judge the progress of that when the edging is finished and I get down to business. I rounded the third corner last night.

More to follow -- but I must get on with Saturday. The paragraph breaks were here when I first pasted today's production into Blogger, but soon disappeared. I have reinstated them. Now they are excessive, but I am not going to meddle further.