Medical

Could be worse.

Helen and I, yesterday morning — goodness, it’s good to have her here — found my husband in bed, weak and uncomfortable, still suffering from diarrhoea but no longer vomiting, perfectly crisp mentally. They have sent off samples somewhere, and may know more today. Or may not, with only a weekend staff available. He was oddly flushed, but apparently not feverish.

I phoned at the end of the afternoon and spoke to Manuel himself (of Fawlty Towers fame). He had never heard of my husband. The report I eventually extracted was that the situation was unchanged. Visiting is from 10. Helen and I will go in early today. I usually go around 11:30 and sit with him while he has lunch, but there is not much point in that under present circumstances. He is eating a bit, they say.

I have mastered the spelling of “diarrhoea”, I think. The secret is to start out d-i-a-r-r; the rest will take care of itself.

These symptoms are complicated in a diabetic (this for Melfina, with thanks for her kind wishes) by the need to worry about blood sugars. I am very glad to be spared that.

And I am grateful for all your good wishes.

Knitting

I’ve reached the 19th band (of 29) on the Tokyo shawl and hope to finish it (=the 19th band) today so that I can move on to the dog. The target there, this time, is to do the left side, wind the Greek wool to provide markings for head and tail, find some pipe cleaners (Amazon will probably have them), and face up to the kapok situation. I may still have some, left over from Sam the Ram and that Marmite jar I knit for James. If so, I must find it.

Dawn, this time I did fine with the link to New Scientist. The idea sounds and looks fun. Presumably you use the random number generator again and again across each cable row. Thanks for that.

I would still like to know (if not too much mental effort is involved) about swirls in nature, snails and things, and whether there is a mathematic formula for them which a knitter could use.

(All this scientific talk has led me to buy Watson’s book about the discovery of the double helix. It is pretty low-brow and gossipy, and I am enjoying it. It was the basis for a movie? television drama? which I would like to see again, with Jeff Goldblum as (presumably) Watson — it must have been Watson whom Goldblum played, as he was the only American on the Cambridge team.)

I got the new Rowan book when I was up the hill the other day getting rat poison. I like the scarf on the cover and some of the cables — “Glacier” “Nippy” “Frosty” -- in the Frost section.  I’ll have to have a look at the “brushed fleece” in which “Glacier” is knit. I don’t know it. No wonder Rowan yarns keep going out of production, as more and more are constantly added.

Trouble is, even Britain is warm enough indoors these days, all winter long, that such a thing could only be worn by energetic outdoors types