Early hair appt today...

"Relax" progresses. The first eyelets have been inserted. There are four columns of them, about three inches on each side of the side seams, 12 rounds apart. Very understated, very Japanese. The first ones show up better than I expected. Looking forward to the insertion of the next eyelets helps one through the ocean of plain knitting.

The bottom edge doesn't flair -- it flips up, very neatly. A purl round might have prevented that, if I had thought of it. If blocking doesn't cure the problem, it'll just have to be a feature. I could even hem it in place. The designer says to begin with a k1,p1 row, after the long-tail cast-on, and to count that row as wrong-side. The alternate rows are knit. There are four k1, p1 rows in all.

I didn't pay any attention, because every row for me was a right side. But now I pause to reflect, too late as always. I knit two or three rows back and forth, as I always do in that situation, to minimise the danger of a moebius twist. If I had taken care that the first circular round was a knit round, I would have achieved what the designer is asking for. Did I? Who knows. And would it have made any difference? Maybe.

Non-knit

We're planning a quickie in Strathardle next week, if no more snow falls. Helen and her family in Athens want a house there, for the rapidly-approaching time when all three of their boys are at school in Edinburgh; and also for the parents' old age. There aren't many houses about. A possible has turned up and my husband and I hope to make a preliminary inspection of it.

Even a quick visit would let me pop the forcing pot over some rhubarb and cut down the summer-fruiting raspberries and look around to see what's happening. Any wild garlic yet? Any tame garlic, come to that? Did the bunching onions recover from being eaten by deer? I need to start thinking garden.

I didn't do anything about wi-fi yesterday -- it was one of those mornings where things kept happening and I found myself washing up the breakfast dishes at lunch-time. My inclination at the moment is to upgrade to the new, superior BT hub. Lynne, that is a very interesting idea about an Ethernet Over Powerline -- a new one to me. But it sounds as if it has to be physically plugged in at both ends. Is that right? That would sort of defeat the purpose of letting my husband sit quietly in his armchair with his tablet.

Now I'd better go off and allow myself to be beautified.