Oh, dear. We've lost a follower, I think.

The dog has now got a head facing outwards, and a tail:

Remaining to be knit is a piece called “tummy” which I take to be a strip reaching from tail to muzzle; and, of course, ears. I hope to polish those off today and then move on to the Sous Sous. When the dog’s turn comes again, it can be entirely devoted to finishing, obviously no small job. The pipe cleaners are here.

I have decided to do the Sous Sous the way it is written, rather than knitting the front like the back. It was the oddity of the pattern that attracted me ihj5rtn the first place. (Perdita is "helping".)

The vest of my husband’s which (at the moment) the NHS seems to have swallowed was knit in 2012, of a madeleinetosh DK called “Georgia O’Keeffe”, chosen perhaps partly for its art historical association, and extremely successful (as all madeleinetosh’s tend to be). That much I learn from the computer. It remains to be seen whether I have kept good written records of the actual knitting — there was no pattern.

Zite continues as dismal as ever. Why not just kill it? Almost all the knitting articles come from something called diyspecifics, elementary thoughts poorly expressed. However, they did relent to the extent of including the Harlot’s latest, an account of a most interesting expedition she made recently with her sister-in-law to buy a whole year’s yarn at once — because the sister-in-law was about to leave with her husband to work in Vietnam.

It sounds as if they approached the problem with verve and intelligence, getting everything in the same yarn but different colours, so that left-overs could be used for stripes. The sister-in-law had been collecting patterns in advance. 

Luggage space was an additional problem. The happy shoppers pretty well ignored that one. If a year in rural Vietnam should loom for me (unlikely) I would take the Queen Ring. Plenty of knitting, very little luggage space consumed. And maybe a couple of  unknit socks. Perhaps this is a signal that I should start knitting it here in Edinburgh.

Non-knit

Loretta, I love the idea of your husband titrating his rat poison dose to his alcohol intake. One could take the idea further, and factor in avocados and hummus (which have the opposite effect to alcohol). Don’t worry, Lou — I’m kidding.

I allowed myself half a bottle of Westons Vintage on my birthday. That’s about the two units of alcohol my booklet says it is all right to drink. And I decided that it really wasn’t worth bothering. I have become moderately fond of Waitrose Low Alcohol Cider. It contains 1/2 a unit per bottle, and I have taken to drinking a bottle of it — one only — on any day when I happen to be in Waitrose anyway. And since there is a branch between here and the Western General hospital, that is most days. 

Here is a cat picture, taken yesterday.

And another, in the same place, from a month ago. And my poor husband hasn’t even met her.