You are too charitable, Jenny and Fishwife.

On the day of C’s funeral, my husband and I left the party fairly early, when he could bear no more. Alexander and Ketki and their sons went back to Loch Fyne, Rachel’s children caught a train to London. But Rachel and her husband Ed stayed on, and wound up finishing the funeral baked meats, and the wine, with the cousins. That’s when one of them announced that she wasn’t going to give the deed to the grave back to my husband.

Rachel told us, when she got back to Drummond Place, as no doubt was intended. There was more, but that will do.

My husband very rarely mentions his sister, and hasn’t mentioned the deed since that day.

We had a good lunch yesterday, although Botanic Garden Café food seemed dull to me this time. My husband enjoyed and appreciated the occasion. C’s feelings about him were complicated, and not untinged with resentment. I wonder whether he was even resented, at the end, for having more life than she got. His love for her was – is – simple, uncomplicated, protective. The closest he can get to her now, is to be with her three daughters.

Fishwife, the link above is to your gardening blog, which makes me weep with embarrassment, to call my efforts “gardening”.

Knitting

I finished the first sock. The Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off is easy and surprisingly stretchy.

Then I tried to cast on the second sock, and came completely unstuck. I was trying to do another Turkish Cast-On, using the paragraph in Schurch & Parrott’s “Sock Knitter’s Handbook” which had guided me the first time. I couldn’t understand it. Weariness? Stress? Stupidity?

I thought I had succeeded, on the first or second attempt, and found that I was knitting round and round a largish hole. You’re meant to achieve a seamless start. On the fifth or sixth go, I got it, or at least, got something. There seems to be a bit of a ridge there, and there shouldn’t be, but it’s liveable-with.

So that means that the Turkish cast-on has to be added to the list of skills I need to acquire, before I even get on to Judy’s Magic one. I’ve watched a video this morning, and I think I get the idea. It might be better, next time, to go on with two circulars for a while, switching to five dp’s only when the toe increases are nearly finished.

It makes E’s suggestion (June 1) of getting the cast-on done for both socks early on, all the more useful. Master the Turkish cast-on, and then reinforce one’s mastery by doing it again a few days later – and then knit the socks.

I might add that when I finished the first sock last night, I felt quite pleased with the whole toe-up concept thingy.

Non-knit

The news from Washington is that Jenni and Theo are expecting a boy.