I think this is the moment when I will bow out for awhile, perhaps to reappear in the last week of the year.

Our plans seem to be in more than ordinary disarray.

n      My husband’s illness puts a question mark over our journey to Loch Fyne next Friday. And I’m not altogether sure I feel entirely hunky dory myself. We have long believed that there is a sort of sub-flu one can get when one has had the injection, and I think that may be where I am.

n      Rachel’s husband’s dearly loved Aunt Frances had a cerebral haemorrhage last weekend. Drs decided yesterday to withdraw ventilation and let her die. Rachel and her family couldn’t possibly come to Loch Fyne – they are expected on the 26^th – if it meant missing Aunt Frances’ funeral. No one knows, of course, how long the dying will take. I am fond of Aunt Frances myself, although knowing her but little.

n      Alexander cooks on an Aga, which came with the house. Agas are generally regarded as the ne plus ultra of cooking apparatus, although Alexander himself – a fussy cook – is not entirely pleased with it. Be that as it may, something has recently gone wrong. A Man is meant to come next week and put it right. If he doesn’t come or can’t fix it, roast goose on the 25^th is out of the question. I’m not much bothered with this one, although Alexander is – baked beans on toast washed down with champagne would do very nicely.

Amongst my own right-now problems is the question of what to feed people today. James and his daughters will be here at the end of the afternoon – the middle of the night, for them, freshly arrived from China. James thinks the girls will just want to go to bed, but I can’t meet them on the doorstep with the immortal line, “You’ll have had your tea”. I’ve got to offer something, and one of the girls is vegetarian.

And James himself (a Type 1 diabetic) has adopted a regime of no-carbohydrate-in-the-evening. And my husband continues to protest that in his current delicate state he doesn’t want anything “cooked”, he just wants food.

Lying awake last night, wondering if I was ill, I figured out today’s program. I’ll have a large pot of water near the boil when they arrive. If the girls want food, I’ll make them spaghetti aglio e olio, a delicious dish of utmost simplicity often consumed by young Italians in the middle of the night. And vegetarian. And then the rest of us can have Gino d’Acampo’s version of spag bol a little later and James can leave out the spag.

And tomorrow will have to look after itself.

As for knitting, I’ve passed the halfway point with the Pig Bauble and progressed with the current sock. I am much struck with the emotional difference between madelinetosh scarlet and KF hand-dyed-effect rhubarb, a dark purple. I am pleased enough with the sock which is emerging, but the process of knitting it completely lacks that scarlet boost.