A good day, yesterday. The cleaner got a tremendous amount of dirt sucked in to the vacuum cleaner, and I got on well with the Income Tax. I must aim to file it on-line this week. That leaves a few days’ margin-of-error before the end of the month. EZ suggests somewhere that one lie down for a while in a darkened room after cutting a steek. That’s certainly how I feel after a session of on-line Income Tax filing.

Comments: I like the idea, rosesmama, that the White House has a random-card-generator which produced my unexpected greeting. Yes, it’s got Bo in the snow, with the White House vaguely discernible behind. Seasonal, non-denominational. I still suspect Theo or Jenni. The thing to do with it, I have decided, after it has served its time on the mantelpiece here, is to take it to Strathardle. There’s much less paper in that house, and the house itself is much less likely to be cleared for sale in the next 50 years.

I’ll put it in the drawer under my thermal underwear. They’ll find it there when I’m dead – it says “White House” in big writing on the envelope.

Calcutta Cup: there was a little box on one of the sporting pages of the Scotsman this week giving details of Scotland’s four 20^th century wins at Twickenham – the stadium in London where the match will be played on Groundhog Day this year. That’s not very many.  I was interested to see that in 1983 Scotland not only won the Calcutta Cup at Twickenham, but lost all their other matches.

A victory this year, most unlikely as it is, would certainly be worth three sweaters – Archie and the Little Boys.

The yoke of the Gardening Sweater goes forward well. The decreases aren’t sensible yet (can that word be used like that?) but I figure every decrease round takes an inch and a half from the circumference so the results should be obvious soon. Safely back on the needles, the sweater doesn’t look too big after all.

Edinburgh’s snow has largely vanished. There’s no reason we shouldn’t attempt Mass-going this morning. I drive my husband up to the Cathedral these days, and then – unless, miraculously, there is a parking space vacant in front of Tesco Express – drive home again and walk up myself. We come home on the 12:48 No. 8 bus from the top of Broughton Street. On yesterday’s showing, even that would have been impossible – too much hazardous walking for him on icy pavements. But the pavements seem clear this morning.