Back again, and Mr Murray has managed all right at Wimbledon without me.

Theo sent me this picture of his parents – my sister and her husband – with the caption, In sadness as in joy, LeComptes know what to do. It is a very good picture of them, and a pleasant glimpse into Jenni and Theo’s house in DC.

I took the Joseph’s Coat yarn and pattern to the knitters in K*rkmichael. They were very pleased, especially when they found out I wasn’t asking them to knit it for me. When Jenni and Theo get their baby, I’m thinking Baby Surprise – the pattern I’ve knit far more times than any other – and I’m thinking madeleinetosh.

As for vegetables, I have never seen such a mess, not even the year I had my cataract operations and everything was unweeded for months. We’ll stick to the good news, of which there is very little.

The potatoes look fine. I earthed them up.

Nature’s next move will be potato blight. I used to think we didn’t have it in Perthshire, like snakes in Ireland. Alas, not so, and the current wet, wet weather is perfect for incubating it.

The vegetable cage is working. Three lettuces seem to have gone missing. I blame slugs. These are the plants that spent a week in the post, remember. They weren’t in the best of condition when planted out.

Nature, here, will no doubt soon unleash cabbage white caterpillars onto the little broccoli plants. And, worse, I saw a rabbit in the cage – or was it just window-shopping? The netting is pegged down, but there is space between the pegs for an industrious rabbit to wriggle under. I improved the defences somewhat with flat stones. But nothing stops rabbits except fencing which goes several inches underground.

And I saw a deer on the lawn. One expects them in the winter, a hungry time, but they are meant to stay away in July. It is hard to dislike them, such beautiful creatures with their long legs, but they do a tremendous amount of damage. No doubt there are people who don’t even dislike bunny rabbits.

Saag gosht with Good King Henry supplying the saag was a success. It is hard to be absolutely sure whether it was just that the spices covered the taste of the greenery, or whether – as I believe – the bitterness of GKH contributed a dark and interesting note to the total effect.

The messiest bit of all was the herb border. It had become a solid tapestry of weeds and herbs. I flung myself upon that task on Sunday, cleared most of it out, replanted. It now looks like a battlefield, which at least implies effort. There’s more tidying to be done around the edges – I hope I’ll get to that next time. And I’m going to order some garlic chives (=Chinese leeks).

I knit onwards on the Japanese shirt – now just over halfway from cast-on to armpits, knitting fronts and back together. Slow going, but wonderful. And back here, Alexander’s toe-up sock is not far from the ribbing.