I learned from the radio this morning that Shimon Peres and Lauren Bacall are/were first cousins.

I've got two female courgette flowers this morning – things are hotting up a bit out there. The boys had all gone away – courgette flowers are truly ephemeral. I tore apart a couple of recently faded ones to get at some pollen.

Here are my first attempts to photograph the Mysterious Plant (pressing the envelope the wedding invitation came in into service). I am not at all sure of my diagnosis of Japanese knotweed. It doesn't seem to be growing fast enough – about 1/4” per day. And the leaves, now unfolding, don't seem to have the characteristic shape I mentioned yesterday. I would be very grateful for any comment.

Knitting

The long, long needle from Meadow Yarns turned up. My experience is that they (MY) are not to be faulted for prompt service. And their selection of needles is superb. I haven't ordered yarn from them.

So I worked out a formula for my pickup rate for the border of Rams & Yowes, and set to. For bottom and top, pick up 6, skip 1; for the edges, pick up 3, skip 1. What I didn't do was work out how many stitches that will give me for each side, nor am I counting, yet. That will be an interesting discovery on the first round. Despite the skipping, there are still an awful lot of stitches. I did the bottom and the first side, and left it at that for yesterday.

IK turned up yesterday, always welcome. The one design shown on a man is out of the question, but I like the Hitch Pullover in the Horse Country section and don't see why it couldn't be re-shaped a bit. I also mean to engage with the article about Fisherman's Rib and Brioche and really try to understand what's going on. I love that stuff. EZ's word for it, I think, is “fruity” and that's perfect.

Life

Hellie sent me a book yesterday in .pdf format. Top secret; it's something that hasn't been published yet – but I hope it is all right to tell you that it is not the next work by the author of Eeny Meeny, due out next month. She has done this twice before, so I knew that there was an easy way to get it into the Kindle app on the iPad in book-reading form but yesterday I had a titanic struggle to recall the simple steps. My Kindle address is miles.jean@kindle.com (who'd'a thot it?) and I had to put Convert in the subject line and then attach the pdf packet and mail it to myself at that address. So now you know. It seemed to take me hours. I haven't started reading the book.

Today's event is a dentist's appt for my husband. The quiet, well-lit waiting room is perfect for Unst Bridal Shawl edging-knitting.

And I must answer that wedding invitation, both formally, accept with pleasure, and informally, explaining what will probably actually happen. It all sounds quite straightforward but I am consumed with anxiety about how to manage the end of my day. There are lots of trains to Edinburgh; Darlington station is about six miles away from where we'll be. It is a good idea to book a taxi well in advance and it would be most unreasonable to expect anyone to stay sober enough to drive me there. Should I plan to sit down for the Wedding Breakfast at 5:30, or not? I'll be pretty tired by then.

And it's sort of tough on Lucy's mother, such a reply. Nothing is worse, when you're trying to stage a big event, than guests who don't know quite what they're going to do – except, perhaps, guests who don't reply at all.

We're in Exam Result season. I think we should know this week whether Alistair got the results he needs to take up his university place in Glasgow. Next week will be Archie's and his brother Mungo's GCSE's – and I think maybe Alistair's sister Rachel is expecting some AS-levels. A big year.