Sorry about that.

Yesterday's job was to get my husband up out of bed earlier than his wont, and across Edinburgh to a routine diabetic appt at the Royal Infirmary. All went well, but it was hard work. The dr we finally saw was brisker – brusque-er – than usual. You're 88, bloods are good, blood-sugar control is good, eyesight is good, feet don't require amputation [a frequent side-effect of long-term diabetes], is there anything you want to ask? All very well, but the drs we see there are usually slower and more patient.

I finally finished off the first Pakokku sock while we were there, but haven't cast on the second.

The trouble with Jane Austen is that she spoils you for everybody else. My Kindle is filling up with UFO's. On Thursday in the supermarket I bought Barbara Vine's “the child's child”, actually on paper, and am quite enjoying it. I think she (Barbara Vine = Ruth Rendell) is nearly as old as me and John Le Carre and P.D. James, and of the four it might be said that she's wearing the best.

This one is on the theme of homosexuals and unmarried mothers, and how profoundly attitudes to both – and in the case of the former group, not just attitudes but the law – have changed since the middle of the last century.

I was startled, on page 26, to find a reference to “Raffaelovich and Gray”, in terms which suggest that they may reappear. I do hope so. The former was an Edinburgh architect, my husband's sister's godfather as it happens, and the latter, the Cardinal Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh. I asked my husband about them as we drove home yesterday – he said they were certainly a “pair”.

Google is no help with “Raffaelovich” (or “Rafaelovich”) but I don't entirely trust the new Google. They're terribly keen to sell me a firm of architects. There's plenty about Cardinal Gray, but with no mention that I can find of Raffaelovich.

As for knitting, I am well embarked on the ninth repeat of the centre of the Unst Bridal Shawl, still resolved to return to Milano after the tenth.