Jenny and I had a fine time yesterday, starting in K1 Yarns where I hadn’t been for a while. There’s nothing to beat a flesh-and-blood LYS, with yarn for fondling. As planned, I bought yarn which I hope will do for both of my Knit Nation classes – Franklin’s Tomten class requires one ball worsted-weight in white or a light colour, and one in a contrasting colour. The Travelling Stitches class requires a ball of light, solid-colour smooth DK yarn.

This is what I got. The weight is unspecified on the ball-band, probably more DK than worsted.

I’ll have to buy something at the Knit Nation marketplace to mark the occasion. Everybody is going to be there. Electric red for the sweater I have promised Thomas-the-Elder? Or go-with-the-flow? I think the thing to do will be to set out with specific requirements for some of the things which have flitted across my consciousness in recent months – and for which, in many cases, I have downloaded and printed the patterns.

After lunch Jenny and I walked back to the National Archives at the east end of Princes St., where she is working. I think we passed Alistair Darling on our way, near the new Missoni Hotel, at the centre of a grim posse of men wearing red rosettes. It’s funny how the mind works – I thought, “That’s Alistair Darling” as we walked past, but it took me a fair while to work out in my head who Alistair Darling was. And maybe it was someone else anyway.

I’ve reached round 41 of the mourning shawl border, in the midst of a particularly boring passage of those big holes you make with two adjacent YO’s. Nothing else. The result looks very nice, but I’m finding it tedious. A new motif will be introduced in round 44. Onward!

No news from Loop – their website still promises a delivery of Madeleinetosh yarn in April. But the Schoolhouse says they hope to have the new EZ book back from the printers next week – we really do seem to be making progress there.

Both my husband and I are suffering from what are technically described, I believe, as “summer colds”. Ache-y, sneeze-y, sore-throat-y. I doubt if there’s any point in seeing a dr, although my husband is old enough and frail enough that I hesitate to neglect symptoms of any sort. I’m worried about getting back to Strathardle. This is May. I haven’t got the kohl rabi in.

There was a bit of gentle rain here yesterday, and the world looks damp. More to come, I hope. Helen says that Athens is unusually cold and rainy for the time of year, and of course we all know that it's been bucketing down in Chicago. Not fair.