I am sorry for yesterday’s silence. I was suddenly hit on Thursday evening by the sort of depression that feels like the wrecker’s ball. Will the dining room story ever end?

The latest man, from HBMDJJ, came yesterday, and inspired confidence. He is drawing up an entirely new specification, including bringing the ceiling down, repairing consequent damage (if any) to the cornice and ceiling rose, putting a new ceiling up, redecorating. The wallpaper is in good condition at the moment, only slightly dusty, and ideal for the prints we hang in there. The need to replace it was sad news.

It will take a week or so, he said, for the insurance company to take all this on board, and then there will be another interval while his company schedules the work.

But have we the strength to see this out?

Knitting

Still, yesterday went better. I picked up the snood again, and got the grafting done. It’s not too bad – but wouldn’t it have been smarter, Jean, to put the join in the darkest stripe instead of the lightest? The loose ends have been tidied, and there remains but the “light blocking” the pattern recommends.

I was very grateful for Wednesday’s comments about provisional cast-ons. Annie, a machine-knitting friend once recommended the course you suggest, a few rows knit in a waste yarn, and just face up to the subsequent unpicking. That will be at the top of the list the next time I have to do one.

Shelly, I managed the “itsy, bitsy spider” cast-on once, working from some book. It wasn’t called that, but one recognises it at once. It was fun, too, once one got one’s fingers going. I can’t remember the subsequent effort to recover the stitches, which probably means it went smoothly.

FiberQat, I’ll search out Judy’s Magic Cast-On. That sounds promising.

Shelly, again, that was an interesting story about Candace’ sock class. I think I learned the crochet cast-on from her, when doing one of her patterns as a Games entry. Can’t find a pic. Melody? There, it worked fine, and was a revelation. The resulting cardigan was (as usual, for me) unplaced.

But if I ever get to attend the workshop I now dream of, one of the things I want to learn is that one about the crochet chain, where you pick up stitches into the back of it. I did that only once, and it was a total disaster, involving an agony of unpicking. But, surely, if one gets it right….

Non-knit

I met a Strathardle neighbour in Drummond Place yesterday – sort of thing that happens. She said she had heard James on the radio recently. News to me. An email from his wife Cathy says that he has been much involved (not surprisingly) with Ch*n G*********. He (James) has been urging him (Ch*n) not to go off to America with his immediate family and leave his old mother behind at the mercy of the village political thugs. I was rather touched.