I had a successful dr's appt yesterday – except that I feel no better, but that's par for the course. I took taxis – thanks for your encouragement. There were plenty of parking spaces, more than there are later in the day, so I won't need to indulge in such an extravagance again. The nice young dr took my problem seriously. He's taken bloods. I'm to go back in a fortnight. That gives it a good chance to get better on its own.

I was early, not having to accommodate my husband's love of the last minute. And despite the early appt, the dr was running late. So I got more Pakokku sock done than I expected. I'm very near the toe shaping, and really ought to absent myself from the felicity of lace knitting for an evening to polish off Sock One and cast on Sock Two. Either my symptoms will go away by themselves; or something will turn up in the bloods which they can give me a pill for; or I will have to be referred for Further Tests, and in that case I'll need a sock to knit.

And, on socks: there was a letter in the Waffy (=Telegraph) on Thursday from a man who complained that the seams of his socks sawed into his feet. The letter any of us could have written in reply appeared yesterday, suggesting four little sticks with a point at each end and 100 gr of wool.. I must cut it out – she used the words “kitchener stitch” with a lower-case K, like that. Not all that long ago, before the internet made us all one, British knitters didn't know the phrase. I tried it on my sister-in-law once, perhaps 20 years ago. She was a life-long knitter, continental-style, and a good one although not an enthusiast. She had never heard of it .(As Lord Kitchener hadn't, you may remember, when I wrote to him about it.) EZ was surprised to encounter it, when she got to America.

That implies – it only occurred to me yesterday – that it was common in knitterly speech in America in  the late 30's, and certainly during the war years. I had been working on the hypothesis that it was a WWII revival of an WWI idea. But EZ must have heard it used by people who use it as we do today, assuming a fellow-knitter knows what we're talking about.

Lizzie is back in Kansas, and sent this picture of herself about to venture into the cold in her beanie. It goes remarkably well with the Union Jack.

Sue sent me this link to a story about a knitting robot. It's sort of scary.

I've done six scallops on the final side of the Unst Bridal Shawl edging – time to order those needles, one 24” and one longer. I've got a good selection of needles of the right gauge – but all metal. They must have done fine when I was knitting the Princess, but by now I derfinately need to see a contrast between yarn and needle. The supplementary yarn from Jamieson & Smith was dispatched the day it was ordered, they said, and may arrive this morning. It's wound on largish cardboard cylinders – the package won't go through the letterbox.

Every time I pick up that edging, I am transported back to Burrastow. Although, in fact, I didn't buy the yarn until our last day on Shetland, when we had already left Burrastow (probably forever) because I insisted on being a good deal closer to the airport for our final night. But I imagine myself knitting by the peat fire, going for a walk in the late morning, having a nap in the afternoon, looking forward to Pierre's evening menu.

It was Knitsofacto who found it for us – I was dubious about the distance from Lerwick. And then, most sadly, she was unable to join the adventure. A family wedding – they can be as bad as funerals.

The pop-up menu plague has extended itself to editing my text this morning -- anything double-underlined will take you to an ad. I hope your more robust systems have excluded this feature. I'm sorry about it.