Onward.

I polished off the 19th bank of the Tokyo shawl, and discovered that I had been using the wrong colour for it. It doesn’t matter.

So, on to the dog. I began by winding one of the two skeins of homespun wool I bought in Athens. I only need a few yards if it, as the Target Dog is virtually unmarked, but I thought I  would put some colour in the tail and an ear anyway.

The yarn is very home-y, and I was severely tempted to stop winding when I had enough for my purpose. But I went on compulsively. What a lot! And I have another skein the same — far more yarn than I realised at the time that I was buying.

I have ordered some pipe cleaners from someone on eBay. It was easy, and they’re very cheap — not much harm done, even if I turn out not to need them. It remains to dig in the stash cupboard and discover whether I have any more stuffing. This afternoon, inshAllah, I’ll start knitting the left side of the dog.

Gaughan’s “Knitting Nature” turned up. It’s interesting, and has some ingenious patterns — but nothing, at the moment, even for the HALFPINT list, and the chapter on Spirals doesn’t have anything comparable to Debbie New’s prize-winning socks, or the much simpler child’s hoodie in Loop-d-Loop. Maybe I should bite the bullet and just try once again to knit those socks.

Indeed, it’s time to start giving preliminary thought to the Next Big Thing. The dog will almost certainly be the next thing to be finished — I could put Arne & Carlos’ socks at that point in the cycle. But one day in the imaginable future, the Sous Sous and the Tokyo shawl will also be finished. What do I aspire to next?

Non-knit

James rang up last night, wondering about the Games. Rachel and her family (stalwart Games-goers) won’t want to come this year, with the wedding on Loch Fyne so soon to follow. Alexander and Ketki are much concerned with shifting their base to Glasgow and starting the Little Boys off on life at secondary school. That still leaves a lot of potential people, in the form of James and Helen and their families.

And this is one of the relatively rare years when the Fourth Saturday comes early — at the end of next week, in fact. If my husband is still in hospital, Perdita and I could go up for two nights. I could introduce her to the concept of Outdoors. It would be grand to be there, even briefly.

Would the Games be tolerable without drink?