I’m exactly half-way through the Strong-Fleegle heel, increases done, ready to start turning. I left it there last night, being overwhelmed with tired.

Mary Lou, I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy The Moving Toyshop. Funny about memory, again: I remembered that Edmund Crispin wrote it, even before Southern Gal’s enthusiastic comment arrived. The detective is called Gervase Fen, I think. I remember (I think) what Edmund Crispin looked like in a deliberately silly picture on the back of that old green Penguin. But I can’t remember a word of the book, except a sense of enjoyment.

Time to read it again, except that my Current Reading is getting a bit like my WIP collection.

What I would be very grateful for, from you, is where to find P.D. James’ best-of-all-time list. I tried googling, and found lists by other people which include James. I’d very much like to see her pick.

Franklin – you don’t need a link, and the computer is being super-slow today – says he is about to offer a class called Snip ‘n’ Zip, about steeks and setting in zippers. He doesn’t rest on his laurels, that man. I left a comment begging for it to become a Craftsy class.

I’ve steeked for a long time, and am happy and confident with the technique, but I’d still like to see it in Franklin’s hands. Zippers, on the other hand, are as far as they can be from my comfort zone. I could never get them quite right in dressmaking, either. I never attempt them, now -- and there are designs I’d like to have a go at, those men’s sweaters with a short zip for the neck fastening, for instance, left artlessly half-open in the photograph.

You can do more or less the same thing with a placket and a couple of buttons, but it’s not nearly as sexy.

The armholes of the Grandson Sweater from a few years ago were steeked. I remember that there was little in the way of extra stitches for security, and I wondered if they would hold.  Joe seems to have worn it all the way through university without any difficulty.

Chilli-growing and other doorstep gardening

The Apaches have started reddening! The Scotch Bonnet is definitely about to flower. (I think I’ll have to take it along to Strathardle next week.) The big jalapeno continues to crop. I doubt if it’ll survive being left behind.

I’ve given up on huauzontle and made a second herb trough in its place – basil (from a supermarket pot), tarragon, sage, pot marjoram and rosemary. All well so far. We’ve had a second sorrel soup from the sorrel pot, and it already seems to be re-growing nicely. The nasturtiums in the first herb trough (parsley, chives, thyme) seem strangely reluctant to flower. The Welsh onions (or whatever they are) are plumping up nicely.