One door closes, another opens.

Alexander emailed me yesterday with the suggestion that I knit Alistair a pair of socks with his name on them in binary – Alistair is the grandson who is doing computer science at Glasgow, with ambitions in the direction of Silicon Valley. The idea is that a block of four stitches would be either one colour or another, representing the 0's and 1's of the binary code.

Alexander provides a chart which (he must have done himself, and which) he says represents the name. I whisked it off at once to Evernote. This site provides the basic translation, from “Alistair” into binary. I'm not sure that I yet see exactly how the pattern evolves from there. I'll work on it.

I once knit a pair of patterned socks for an old friend who was getting married in Birmingham to another old friend, widow to widower. She was a French scholar, he a Byzantinist, so the socks combined the fleur de lis with a Greek cross somehow, and included the date of the wedding. This must have been before I started blogging – I have no memory of writing about them.

It was fiddly work. I had to knit them inside out to counteract the tendency of two-colour knitting to pull in.

I don't much want to go through that again. But what if I knit Alistair a whole sweater, with the binary code for his name around the bottom as I have done for the Calcutta Cup in times past?

It would have to be in a relatively fine wool, with the Californian climate in mind. The new madelinetosh sock yarn beckons. And, ideally, Alistair would have to come here for a look at my knitting-for-men books and bearing a well-fitting sweater for me to measure. Not insuperable problems, either of them.

If nothing else, such a garment would be a talking point at my funeral. I want as many as possible to wear something I knit, as I have often mentioned here before. I wish I could have a sneak preview of the group photograph.

The Tokyo shawl continues well. Perhaps I'll attempt a photo tomorrow. Blocking is going to be critical on this one – the alternation of st st and reversed st st pulls it up, and will need to be smoothed somewhat, but not so much as to lose the sculptural effect.

Old Age 

Living as we do, tottering on from day to day, I am much stronger and more agile than my husband, and I can – to some extent – keep the ship afloat. This creates the illusion that I am strong and agile and capable. Living for a week among people under sixty, as I did in Athens, makes it very clear that this is not so.

I am sort of concerned for Hillary. She looks old. Does she really want to spend her last years of health and strength campaigning and then being president? Clearly she does – but oh, dear. I think the Bible is essentially right about three score years and ten – not that there aren't many good years to come, if you're lucky. The Queen is 20 years older than Hillary, and apparently fighting fit.

But strength begins to decline fairly sharply, at 70. And one doesn't necessarily see it coming when one is in one's late 60's.

My husband has a dental appt today – a full day's work.