I've just put the newspapers out for recycling, for the first time since Disaster Struck in the form of the disappearance of the iPad. I was very, very careful.

Thank you for all your suggestions, I wish we could remember exactly when my husband found that hat in the bedroom – I think it was before the iPad disappeared, but I'm not at all sure. We didn't attach much importance to it until Gosha disclaimed it on Tuesday, day before yesterday. I don't think it could be Archie's, but I'll ask – too small, not his style, he wouldn't have been wearing it in the house.

I couldn't have left he iPad at the neighbour's – that was Wednesday, anyway, and it didn't vanish until Friday. I took my knitting, at her instance, but didn't actually knit. It's not in the knitting bag.

Helen rang up from Athens yesterday after reading the blog, urging us to change the locks. My husband had mentioned that possibility.

The situation seems to me thus:

a) I don't reeely believe that a Malevolent (supernatural) Force took the iPad. But I could be wrong.

b) I do believe that it is gone, not just in some perverse place where I laid it down. Really gone. But I could be wrong.

c) I don't reeely believe that a Bad Man let himself in with his own key while I was out shopping last Friday morning and my husband was in the bathroom, took the iPad from the west end of the house and went all along the passage to the east end where he threw his hat into the bedroom before leaving without disturbing anything or taking anything else. But it's odd.

d) I can't explain the hat.

I ordered some pills for my husband yesterday – the system is that I send an email to the dr and he sends an actual paper prescription in the mail to Boots the Chemist in St James' Centre and I go up there a few days later and collect the pills. This time, I'll get a new iPad as well.

Knitting

I have nearly finished the silk square, and am less happy with it. Viewed severely in the morning light, there are instances after all where a stitch has failed to include both of the strands of yarn held together, leaving behind a loop. It's still a very nice fabric. I can try Rowan Cotton Glace next. I could look to see whether Loop has any madelinetosh sock yarn in something like navy blue – it's hard to do that on this computer because of pop-up ads. I need my iPad.

The current issue of Knitting magazine has a long, helpful answer to a reader's letter about prayer shawls. Maybe I should write for their advice about pocket squares.

Melfina, Greek Helen sent me that link yesterday, too – about the old, old man who knits sweaters for penguins. I find it a wee bit hard to believe, but it's certainly encouraging for us oldies.