I haven’t been frittering away time this morning, I have been composing a reasoned message to my four children and their spouses about tree-planting, but the effect is the same – I must be brief here.

I am grateful for your sympathy, and greatly encouraged that three people thought our pinus aurea might regenerate. What I tell you three times is true, in the immortal phrase. Tamar, we have already engaged a man to build a proper cage for the tree (or for the spot where we will plant another tree, as the case may be) and also one for a tree which we mean to plant in memory of my husband’s sister.

If the tree is as dead as it looks, I am very much inclined at the moment to put a pinus bungeana there. The link is to a page of pictures. It is famous for its beautiful bark.

Knitting

I finished re-knitting the v-neck vest yesterday, except for the ribbing which is of course no small thing. So this morning my husband will try it on again – big moment. I tried something which turned up in that newsletter of Meg’s you referred me to, Ron, namely some short-row shaping on the front shoulder line although there was none at the back. It won’t involve much frogging if it doesn’t work, I figured – but in fact it looks fine.

I didn’t take the Sky Scarf kit to Strathardle and it was just as well, because both mornings the sky was a uniform dull grey, the sun hidden behind a haze which never quite dissipated, no need for careful thought over yarn selection.

Leafcutter Designs has come up with a new idea called the Social Knitwork where you choose some colours and then ask your Facebook friends, or whoever, to choose which one they like and write to tell you why they like it and what associations they have with the colour and then you knit the stripes in the order the comments come in.

I’m not impressed. I’d like to do something else next year that involves a daily decision, though. So it would have to be something that changes, such as nature. A daily stroll through the nearest outdoors – Drummond Place Garden, when we’re here – followed by knitting a colour one sees? Which could be an overall impression of dancing daffodils or deep snow or returning green, or alternatively a small flower spotted somewhere? More subjective than looking at the sky although that in fact is more complicated and subjective than you might think.

Non-knit

Here, for my sake rather than yours, is a boring picture of the Strathardle garden last week. I have put up the rhubarb-forcing pot, as you see. You are not meant to force the same rhubarb twice in succession, and I found I couldn’t remember where I had put the pot last year. So I looked at the blog on my iPad and found a picture which answered the question.

Maybe next year I will find this one useful.