Alexander posted this on Facebook. Easter was just a month ago! Now he's got not ducklings but ducks.

I finished the first Pakokku sock last night, including Kitchener’ing and minimal tidying, and cast on the second one.

Notice how the stripes change and broaden on the foot before the toe-shaping starts. What will happen next?

I also got Craftsy at last on my husband’s new Toshiba – it kept trying to say I wasn’t connected to the internet, which was absurd. Wow! It works, here on my aged desktop, but it’s slow to load and the lessons stutter a bit. There, I was sitting across the dining room table from Franklin while he showed me how to sew an edging on.

I’ve got to do something about this. Getting a new computer, I mean. As well as practising whip-stitch.

Yesterday’s post brought chilli fertilizer and mist-er and seeds. Once a week, the bottle says, for fertilizer – so Monday is Chilli Fertilizer day, henceforth. Misting is easy and fun and I can do it every day. I’ll let you know whether I think it improves pollination.

I am filled with enthusiasm for chilli-growing. Here is a plant which seems very happy on the kitchen windowsill, safe from deer and rabbits and slugs, and which produces a useful crop. I mean, it’s not kohlrabi. There would be room for one or even two more. I have ordered a chilli-growing book.

When Alexander and Ketki lived in London, they had a little conservatory on the back of the house. James used to bring back exotic Chinese chillis to order. Alexander cooked with them, and also grew chilli plants in his conservatory from the seeds.

I have never had much luck with growing vegetables in pots on the doorstep, except for herbs. I am about to try again – sorrel and Welsh onions and huauzontle. I hope to get that started today.

Today’s main problem is what to feed the young woman who is coming to lunch tomorrow. She has been delegated by the publisher to edit my husband’s work and to plug the gaps where there are questions that need to be answered. My go-to lunch for situations like this, where a certain amount of nervous tension is involved (we have not met before), is a Jamie Oliver salmon tray-bake with French beans and olives and anchovies and little tomatoes. It’s easy to cook and – very important, in the circumstances – easy to eat.

The trouble is, it’s what I fed the publisher himself when he was here six weeks ago. What if tomorrow’s woman goes back to London and says, “She gave me some very nice salmon”? And he will say, “Oh, I had that; it must be the only thing she can cook.”

But I’m damned if I can think of anything else.