Tee-shirt weather continues, although admittedly it is somewhat overcast right here at the moment – and today is St Swithin’s day.

Here is a summer-y picture of grandson Fergus in Greece. It arrived yesterday.

It’s all beginning to happen. Helen and her family are back in Athens after a happy time on Pelion – see picture above. She phoned yesterday. She will soon set out to drive across Europe with her three boys, hoping to reach Strathardle on the 23^rd. The Beijing Mileses are meanwhile in Cornwall, hoping for a couple of days in Edinburgh before taking up residence in Strathardle on the 27^th.

Then there’s a week before the real excitement starts.

That’s what we need – dates, and plans. I am not sure when Helen’s husband David will join us – the summer pudding needs to be timed for his arrival. When we were there week-before-last, the berries were just beginning to redden and the netting seemed secure.

There is not much to report on the knitting front. The Curse of Sunday meant that I am still 20 rounds short of the toe-shaping on Mind the Gap Two. Not an impossible target for today.

Jimmy Bean has posted an interesting blog entry on sericulture, with many a tempting link to many an interesting yarn.

Reading

I have finished the late Le Carre I mentioned, The Secret Pilgrim. It’s a series of short stories, artfully threaded together. A farewell to the history of Russia and the West spying on each other, sounding rather our-of-date in these days of other fears.

I am now thoroughly engrossed in daughter-in-law Cathy’s new book, Carnaby. It’s a new departure for her, teen fiction. I am somewhat more than four times the target age, and I am finding it absorbing. I suspect it would be impossible for an author to do without a houseful of teenagers to draw from. It is smart and – despite an utterly depressing background, very convincingly conveyed – funny. And it’s also a well-constructed thriller.

More to follow, when I finish.