The Colinette order arrived. “Vatican Pie” is not quite as College-of-Cardinals as one might expect from Colinette’s wonderful red page, but it’s good enough. I finished the hat last night – lots of ends, remember, because I was using up the oddballs the moths had made for me; and the Wingspan, easy; and mended the socks.

When I got to that point I thought it better just to go ahead with half-an-hour of brioche stitch. Today I’ll wind a skein of the Colinette yarn and begin to play with it.

No news from Jimmy Bean.

Non-knit

A good deal of the rising tension I feel about next weekend’s little jaunt is because it is really rather a long time since I have done anything at all (well, other than a trip to the supermarket) independently.

And some of it is wanting to make things easy for Rachel. She carries a heavy load with cheerfulness and style. I don’t want to weigh her down with my own burdens when she is heroically coming all this way so that I can go to a knitting class. Ridiculous, really. And it will be a busy weekend because it coincides with my husband’s birthday and Alexander and Ketki and the Little Boys are coming and pictures will be hung on Saturday afternoon, we hope. And my husband doesn't really like take-aways (or carry-oots, as they are known locally).

Today’s task is to tidy a shelf of the larder-cupboard so as not to horrify Rachel. Throw away everything whose use-by date is more than five years in the past. Yesterday I looked up and wrote down the suburban train times which I will need to know to get to Loop on Sunday and Kings Cross rather early on Monday morning. I couldn’t persuade the computer to tell me how much money I’ve got in my Oyster card. I can deal with that in London.

Another thing that happened yesterday is that amazon.fr declined my card. I was trying to buy a book for my husband’s birthday present. Horror. If this is going to happen every ten days, I am not going to get very far with Christmas shopping. (And there is always the fear that this time, I really have been hacked.)

However, all seems to be well. I learned last time that a digital download is the acid test. I have only recently discovered Susan Hill’s Simon Serrailler books. I am reading the first on my iPad at the moment with great pleasure, so I ordered the second as my experiment.  It arrived instanter. I think the trouble was that the French were trying to use the number of my former card for “acheter en 1-click” and I think I’ve straightened it out. We’ll see.

Tomorrow I am going for a walk with our niece. (She will be around for the birthday weekend, too, and should be a considerable help.) So I won’t be here. It takes all my strength to scurry around in the morning having breakfast and leaving breakfast and lunch for my husband.