Here's the ring:

There's a scene in “Busman's Honeymoon”, I think – I can't find the book, so this is all from memory – where Harriet Vane, newly engaged to Lord Peter Wimsey, is having lunch with his brother the duke and his sister-in-law the duchess and his mother the dowager duchess. Peter himself is missing, off on one of his diplomatic missions to save Europe perhaps.

When she sees the ring, the duchess (an unpleasant character – I believe she was named Helen) says “Goodness! I hope it's insured.” That's a bit how I feel about this one.

I don't know the setting for the proposal. Perhaps Matt just brought the subject up after supper while pulling the ring out of his pocket. Pret a Manger was just the meeting place where Hellie's mother Rachel delivered it into his keeping.

We saw Ketki briefly yesterday. She says the current idea is to get Hellie and Matt to Loch Fyne now, to suss out the August midges. It sounds as if they're really bad over there. I'll remember what you say about mosquito-repellent, Pat B – but you can't very well spray the guests with citronella.

Knitting

I have finished the rams and yowes per se. There follow two plain (=single-colour) rounds, so I went ahead and knit them to test my idea that border-knitting is going to be easier and pleasanter, involving as it does only one colour at a time. That seems to be true, more or less. There now comes a little motif to finish off, and then another plain round, and that's it. Five more rounds in all. At the worst, I should bind off tomorrow. We're making progress.

I've done 65 ½ bumps on the edging of the Unst Bridal Shawl, out of about 200. I showed it to the Hungarian girl who cleans for me yesterday. She thought it was a tablecloth.

Archie: my own blog might contradict me here, but I think the idea of knitting for him was mine, so that he will have something to wear to my funeral. He was doubtful – it would have to be thoroughly sub fusc and restrained in pattern. I flipped through a couple of men's books and then let the idea subside – until he brought it up again himself. Now I must go through the books again and choose a short list.

I might allow myself to buy the new Rowan book although the man on the cover is wearing the very epitome of what Archie and I abhor – a sweater with a cabled body and Fair Isle sleeves fully worthy, to my mind, of the late lamented You Knit What?? website. Now that I want it, I can't find the comment suggesting that I knit Archie a Fair Isle vest. That's certainly an idea worth discussing with him.