Yesterday I went shopping with my husband on George Street, in search of grey flannel trousers. We failed. It was hard work. Today’s walk with our niece through the Devilla Forest is bound to be easier, however rough the terrain.

Murray lost, in five sets. It was so exciting I couldn’t bear to watch much of it. I don’t remember that ever happening to me before – even with Scotland ahead by a whisker in the final moments of the Calcutta Cup, I’ve always managed to peep from behind the sofa. Not yesterday.

It can’t be claimed as a moral victory for Murray -- I doubt if there are such things in top-level sport -- but it was certainly a quantum leap forward (to switch clichés). Previously, at the end of Grand Slam tournaments when he came up against the big boys, he was swept aside in straight sets. Not yesterday.

And isn’t it odd, for one with a memory as long as mine for such things, to find a British player at No. 4 in the world and none of the three above him either American or Australian?

The yarn is here – madelinetosh DK “Georgia O’Keefe”, a good deal greener than I expected, but at least not blue and my husband seems rather taken with it. It didn’t come in the 7:30-9 a.m. slot when packages often arrive. It didn’t turn up with the normal mail delivery. So I gave up and started forming cross remarks in my head, since the PO had contracted to deliver it yesterday on the consideration of all that money the day before.

But then it did turn up, just before lunch. Pics soon – today I must hurry.

The other thing that turned up yesterday was the new VK. If somebody wanted to take a couple of years and knit straight through a magazine, blogging about it and then publishing a book – that’s what people do – this would be the magazine to go for. If you were thinking of engaging me for the job, I might ask to be let off the home furnishings – cushions and an ottoman cover; I don’t have an ottoman. I might also beg to be excused the gloves (hate knitting fingers) and the beaded shawl (beads are against my religion).

But the point of the exercise would be to do everything, so that might be considered cheating. And the shawl is by my friend Candace Strick.

More seriously, the one that really grabs, at first glance, is No. 12, the twisted pullover by Roberta Rosenfeld whom I have never heard of. Alpaca, and apart from other considerations a brilliant use of that droopy yarn.

I’d better go make some sandwiches to leave behind for my husband.