Rachel and Ed will be here late tomorrow, insh'Allah, for our long-awaited trip to Kirkmichael the next day. I am gripped by panic on several fronts. I met a neighbour yesterday – virtually a next-door neighbour in Drummond Place; in Perthshire, she has a little house in the next glen. She was up there last weekend and found it overrun with mice. That's one of my many anxieties this morning. My husband is afraid trees will have blown down. Turning the water on for the first time after the winter is always exciting.

That about covers it, for Perthshire-based anxieties. There are also plenty of Edinburgh ones.

The iPad still refuses to communicate with the outside world. I've tried turning the wi-fi off and on again and doing the same for the whole machine. I'll have to advance to a more radical re-set today.

Yesterday's dentistry went well. The third pocket square reached the end-game, where one becomes delightfully aware that the rows are shortening. So in the evening I polished it off, and now have the beginnings of a satisfactory little pile.

I don't think enough yardage remains in that skein for the next square. I've got an abundance of yarn – it would be silly to risk an unnecessary join. On the other hand, nothing is more dispiriting, when one suddenly feels like knitting a pocket square, than the thought that one has to wind a skein of yarn first.

So I went ahead and did that.

So there wasn't much time for the Sous Sous. But I've made a respectable start on the 6^th repeat. I think this back piece is going to prove to be the largest by quite a bit. The front is truncated by that fancy shaping and the two little sleeves scarcely count.

My Sirka counter is proving invaluable. It's wonderfully sure of itself – no pegs to fall out or clicking arrangements to attract visiting children. When I switch to the Tokyo shawl, I can trust it to remember where I am in the 16-row Sous Sous repeat while at the same time counting the 21 long rows in each Tokyo colour band.

Well, I can't look at Zite if the iPad won't cooperate. I had better go chip away at panic by writing down some, at least, of the things I need to do, and then doing them. Little trips to Strathardle were never entirely easy, but they used to be routine. They have lost that quality.