My husband seemed very much better yesterday, and my eyesight has been miraculously restored.

He has been moved to an ordinary ward where almost everyone has one of our names – Thomas, James, Alexander. There is also a “John”, I'm afraid, who rather spoils the pattern.

He had been shaved, and they have restored the madelinetosh sleeveless vest in which he was admitted which means he doesn't have to cower under the hospital cotton blanket for warmth – but he is also breathing and talking much more freely. He still has an oxygen tube up his nose, but, hey! one can bring oxygen home with one.

You are right – and thank you, thank you again for all the comments – that we need a good deal of help about the Business of Life before he comes back here. He seemed so much better yesterday that I was a bit afraid that they might suddenly discharge him into the void – but surely not. SisterHelen and our diabetic son James both think that he shouldn't be responsible in the future for his own blood-sugar-testing and insulin-injecting; I'll need someone (not him) to teach me about that as about much else.

He went in in hand-knit socks (of course). Yesterday he was wearing these:

My own appearance is due at least in part to the fact that rough winds were shaking the darling buds of May.

Our dear friend G magically found us in the new ward, spoke a few stern words to my husband about the need to vote for Mark Lazarovicz tomorrow (she holds his proxy), and whisked me off to the Eye Pavilion. The appt was for 4:45. The place was virtually deserted. But when we got to the appropriate corridor on the 4^th floor, it was lined with a desolate queue of patients. It turned out that half of them were waiting for a consultant who hadn't arrived, the other half for laser treatment. The latter queue, fortunately including me, moved forward slowly but steadily.

None of them seemed to have heard of “pocket squares” any more than I had a few weeks ago, but they were polite about it. One of them said she used to knit but had given it up because no one seemed to appreciate hand-knitting these days. I said, they still like socks.

Dr Ali Miqdad AJ Al-Ani, when I finally met him, I liked a lot. Not a man to droop at the end of the day, nor to be diminished by Ramadan, if relevant. The treatment was brief and painless, the improvement astonishing. My “bad eye” has been carrying the load for months. One could almost hear the mental gears grinding, as we left the Eye Pavilion and the right eye took over again.

Greek Helen is coming tomorrow – EasyJet does the Edinburgh-Athens round-trip twice a week, on Thursday and Sunday. I've got to get her on to our car insurance today if I can, and also to sort out my RBS bank card which has suddenly stopped functioning. I have logged on and had a look – the money is still there. I think I'll walk up to the former bank headquarters in St Andrew's Square – before Goodwin's Folly was built at Gogarburn. Phoning the insurance people will be tedious enough. I don't like the telephone.