Wimbledon

Well. This is clearly Murray’s now-or-never year. A month ago, I thought there was no hope, with Nadal back in business and in French-Open-winning form. A week ago we were worried about the draw – would Murray have to play Nadal and Federer and Djokovic in successive matches?

In fact, the draw wasn’t like that. Federer and Nadal were seeded to deal with each other. The possibility that it would be neither-of-the-above didn’t occur to anyone.

The leaves Mr Djokovic and his shoelaces. And four other matches for each of them – five, I think, for Djokovic, who plays today -- in which, as Nadal and Federer have learned, anything can happen.

Chilli-growing

Someone has whispered to the big jalapeno that the summer solstice has passed. It’s fine, lots of fruit, reddening nicely – I harvested six this morning. But it’s not branching and flowering as it was. The two Apaches and the new Scotch Bonnet progress well, with lots of (unreddened) fruit on the Apaches. The Scotch Bonnet has bifurcated; I hope flowers will follow soon.

Knitting

I was able to push gauge-references back nearly 20 years for Franklin (see yesterday). He said he had never found any before the 1930’s. Paton’s “Collection of Knitting and Crochet Receipts”, 1908, by M. Elliot Scrivenor ( no less), lays some emphasis on “Mrs. Scrivenor’s system…of knitting to measure”. She explains how to knit (what we would call) a gauge swatch, and specifies both stitch gauge and row gauge for some of her sweater patterns.

Lizzie responded promptly and with enthusiasm to the idea of Mind the Gap socks for Denver wear. She leaves in late August, I think, before Labor Day. And I wouldn’t mind having the Pakokku socks finished by then as well, to give to my sister when I see her at my birthday jamboree in mid-August. So we need a plan of action.

Stephen West goes to the bottom of the pile.

I will finish the back of Relax2 first of all. There’s not far to go.

Then Lizzie’s socks, including taking them to Strathardle if, as I hope, we go next week. I sat down to wind the skein as I watched the tennis yesterday – and found that it was already wound. That’s why it wouldn’t go through the letterbox. The first colour is good old Northern Line Black.

And then the Pakokku socks. There may well be time for both. The great thing is not to stress about it.

Politics

Notice catdownunder’s comment yesterday. You read it here first. I must say, I wasn’t impressed with the Australian ex-Prime Minister’s performance on our news last night. No one ever accused Mrs Thatcher of being a woman, nor would she have dreamt of playing that card herself when she was knifed by her own party.