We had a grand time. The weather was perfectly usable on Monday, glorious winter sunshine on Tuesday. It comes straight in the window, this time of year, and wonderfully reveals the complex colours in one’s madelinetosh yarn. Big Thomas toiled valiantly with my husband, leaving me to doze by the fire or knit, as preferred.

Here they are having a bonfire.

And here, toiling down among the larches.

My own gardening was slightly a disappointment – I haven’t spread manure and compost yet. I was diverted, this time, into planting some tulipa sylvestris and winter aconites. I regard flowers as a distraction from the main business of gardening, but it had to be done. I unearthed some daffodils in the process. It is touching to find them hard at work on 2012 when all the rest of nature is closing down.

The gentlemen sheep have already joined the ladies, too – we’ll have lambs as well as daffodils next year. It’s good to know, as Europe totters.

I lived extravagantly, eating bacon and eggs for breakfast and drinking cider. This morning’s weigh-in, back in Edinburgh, was the best for months. I shall revert to a strict regime of porridge and sugar-free bitter lemon, rather regretfully.

I haven’t reached the second buttonhole on the Japanese shirt yet, but it’s not far off, and so is the end of the first (of six) skeins of yarn. I sort of wish I had a seventh.

Here is the Dan Webster Memorial Trophy. We got it out of the cornbin for the occasion. You get it by winning races. Big Thomas won it in his day, as did his father – but he wasn’t here at the Games this year to see his brother Joe bring it back home. He rightly says that we must take a picture of all three of them with the cup before we hand it back.

That's the Japanese shirt, too.

Here at base, I cast off the Brownstone last night. Today I hope to finish it – there’s not much to do, tacking down the collar-ends and grafting the underarms. Alexander has sent a Strachur Primary School sweatshirt of little Thomas’ to use as a template for his reduced Brownstone. I wonder if I can do it by drawing a schematic and continuing to use Jared as a guide to shaping. I’ve certainly got a big enough swatch.

Alasdair Post-Quinn’s (got to love that name) “Extreme Double-Knitting” has turned up. It goes straight onto the Challenge Pile. Would I have the strength and patience? I’d like to try the “Compass” hat on the cover.

I’m interested, too, in the rest of the Cooperative Press' list. And then there’s the question of whether to get Mathew Gagny’s “Knitting Off the Axis”. Lots to think about.