Word-recognition seems to have done the trick. Please let me know if you’re having trouble. I’m always a bit scared when confronted with one, and sometimes they’re not at all easy. The example Blogger showed me was perfectly straightforward – I hope they’re like that in practice.

I couldn’t exclude Anonymous because Ron often logs in like that.

Well, here we are back. We had a good time, if an anxious one. I am mostly afraid that my husband will fall while pottering about in the garden. I did, twice, gentle falls onto soft grass, no harm done. He wouldn’t be able to get up again. But it didn’t happen. I can’t even assuage anxiety with cider while we’re there – a crisis might require me to drive. In Edinburgh, I could just dial 999 for an ambulance and have the vapours.

I was taken aback at my own decline – I’m used to his. How stiff I have become, and how exhausting are previously routine tasks. I devoted most of my limited time and strength to arboriculture – weeding, manuring, and watering the two trees we planted last year – the pinus bungeana, a Chinese temple tree put in to replace the Golden Scots Pine our children gave us as a Golden Wedding present (eaten by neighbour’s horses); and pinus sylvestris, the Scots pine itself, planted in memory of my husband’s sister.

I don’t know what she would think of it. She was never entirely reconciled to Scotland. But the tree is doing well.

And I netted the Summer Pudding Bush, which has set a good crop despite neglect; and hoed the potatoes; and did some weeding. Hat, the Babington leeks are hanging in there – i.e., alive, but not growing on their own yet.

Knitting

A new blog post from Franklin – they’re rare, these days. He promises us an e-book – that's something to look forward to.

I stumbled, this morning, via Zite, on the fact that I can watch Craftsy classes on the iPad although Archie and I have so far failed to upgrade the operating system so I can’t have full access to class material and so forth. So I watched Stephen West’s final lesson, on blocking. It contains a marvellous passage in which he has rolled a newly-washed shawl into a towel (as I do myself) and then stands on it on his head (as doesn’t happen here) while continuing to deliver the lesson.

While we were away, I started his Barndom shawl, from his newest collection, Westknits Book 4, “Made for Movement”. And have made good progress with it. I probably should have left it behind to be a Strathardle WIP but life seemed so uncertain that I brought it back. It’s a fun knit. I’m using one of the recently-purchased skeins of Rowan Art Yarns, and some not-quite-white madelinetosh sock that I bought when I thought I wanted to stripe the Relax.

Relax2 reached the divide-for-front-and-back point yesterday. It’s looking good.