We had a grand time yesterday, and the dining room is virtually clear. The toughest job – after Joe had picked up those tea chests and carried them through to the spare room as if they were armloads of yarn – was getting the corner cupboard down. I had emptied it of china and glass while the tea chests and tin boxes were being carried about. The difficulty stemmed from the fact that the vital screw had been inserted at an angle.

I must now – within the next half-hour – get back on the telephone and try yet again to get a date for the ceiling-knocking-down. I keep getting what amounts to a run-around and my husband keeps saying, go to the top. Sound advice, but where is it?

My dear fishmonger should reappear on the scene today, after a 10-day holiday in Corfu. Seafood linguine for lunch, to send Joe on his homeward journey well-fed.

There was little knitting-time yesterday and what there was, was given to Lizzie’s Hundertwasser sock. Interestingly, Joe knows the word “snood” and believes that it means what I am making, namely an infinity scarf. His girlfriend’s mother knits lots of them, he says. That seems both curious and interesting.

There is lots I want to say a propos provisional cast-ons and yesterday’s comments. I would like to attend a day-course (half a day would be enough) on the structure of knitting. I hope I can keep my mind around the topic for 24 hours, and say more here tomorrow.