Here we are back. All is well at Loch Fyne. I've got some pictures of ducks for you, but they will have to wait. I have had unsettling news (that, too, will have to wait) which has, apart from anything else, consumed most of my blogging time this morning.

The ducks are fine, as is the family. Despite the cold and the dark, they are producing three or four eggs every day (there are four ducks). If Alexander and Ketki were selling eggs at the gate, they would be slightly in profit as against the cost of duck food. Since we were last there, a pond has been installed for their use, but they have discovered Loch Fyne and seem to prefer it.

Not much knitting got done. I accelerated a bit in the car on the way back yesterday, persevered in the afternoon as I waiting to bring my husband home from his podiatry appt, and kept on going in the evening – with the result that I am around the heel and nearly done with the gusset decreases of the Pakokku sock which has been in the background for a long time.

Now that we don't travel, and efficient systems have cut down waiting-room time, I'm going to have to institute Sock Weeks if I am to get anything done. I did the School Walk with Alexander and Ketki and their Little Boys on Monday and Tuesday – half a mile or so to the place where the bus picks up five local children. One of the mothers, remembering that I am a knitter, told me that she suffers badly from Second Sock Syndrome. That's one which has passed me by entirely.

When we got back here last night, I found that copy of Knitscene I recently ordered from Interweave, Winter 2012. I couldn't remember why I had sent for it but it didn't take long to figure it out – Cotton and Cloud's shawls. I could have done with one to wrap myself in last night – not terribly cold, really, but dank.

But there are other things I like there too (the Lucy hat!) and I like the tone and the format. I will have to set myself to figure out how to cancel my subscription to the British “Knitting” and replace it with this.

Here is a picture of Ted LeC in Washington, wearing his bsj and a pair of leather boots from his cousin Helen in Greece. Now we all want a pair of boots like his. Helen is actually his first cousin once removed. I love working out that sort of thing.