More progress. I bought an utterly light-weight waterproof jacket of an alarming blue – presumably so that the helicopter can spot one as one lies in a crevasse – and even more alarming price; new shoes; and a corduroy shirt from Marks & Spencer which I didn’t really need. It’s a sort of dusty pink – I didn’t stop to ask myself until too late, how it will look under the Relax.

At least Shetland will see me coming.

I retrieved the package with the clothes I had ordered – another nice shirt, but no skirt (and no explanation of its absence), so I will have to rustle up something from here.

And I have noted what you said, Shandy, and have mentally, at least, added another layer – a thick Manos del Uruguay sleeveless number of my own confection which I wear all winter, under sweatshirts and such-like which are readily washable.

So today is for washing hair, searching out underwear, perhaps a bit of actual packing; and I might try texting  Kristie just to see if I can do it. Tomorrow will be set aside for having the vapours. Helen will arrive very late tomorrow evening. On Friday morning, happy woman, she has an appointment with Archie’s dishy housemaster.

The link in the paragraph above will take you to the beginning of Kristie’s British adventure. This one should connect with the most recent. Kristie’s waterproof jacket looks as blue as mine, but I don’t have any waterproof trousers.

Knitting

I returned to the Stephen West shawl last night. Kristie raised an interesting question recently about the stages by which a WIP becomes a UFO. I realised yesterday that if I cast on the Milano last night, that was it for the shawl. That may well be it, anyway. I’m less than half-way through. Row-length is increasing rapidly – not exponentially, but by constant arithmetical increments. And do I want this object?

I suspect the frog-pond looms.

Many thanks for the updates about Woolgathering. I think, on reflection, that I did know I had expired, and didn’t bother because the spring issue was cushions which are Not My Thing.  I hope they don’t intend to fancify it too much. The slightly amateur air is part of what I love about it. I've ordered 89.

Non-Knit

We are about to get a new Archbishop here in Edinburgh, at last. He said on the radio on Sunday that he thought the disgraced Cardinal O’Brien should stay away from Scotland forever. You will remember that the Cardinal turned up a few months ago, in an alarming sweater, moving to Dunbar where he hoped to end his days helping out in the parish.

But the Pope said no, and O’Brien vanished and hasn’t been heard from since. A friend of his, Margo MacDonald, an often-in-the-news member of the Scottish Parliament, was quoted on Monday as saying, “He has lost everything. Isn’t that enough?” I agree with her, and think it would have been more appropriate for the new Archbishop to answer the journalist's question with, “That is a matter for the Cardinal and the Pope”.

O’Brien’s accusers remain anonymous. The “unsuitable behaviour” he has admitted  remains unspecific and undated and clearly not illegal – although most of the world must believe by now that he has been energetically abusing schoolboys until just the other day. Permanent exile seems a very harsh fate, if we are not to hear the accusations.