C was right – Colin the sumo wrestler was gone yesterday, his bed filled by someone named Kevin. My husband never did get moved. He says that he settled himself for insufficient sleep in his chair on Wednesday night (it must have been), as his only way of honouring his vow not to spend another night with Colin, and was persuaded into bed by the fact that someone, perhaps a policewoman, was delegated to spend the night watching over Colin and preventing him from getting up and getting partially dressed and wandering about, as was his wont.

The whole ward was glad to see him go. Now there is a quiet, well-spoken lonely eccentric in the bed in the other corner -- like Colin, fairly young. He suddenly remarked yesterday, to no one, “In China, the bat is regarded as a symbol of happiness. Not so to me.”

My husband is set to come home on Monday, and all systems are in place, I think.

Well, the Zealana yarn turned up yesterday, as did “Curls” – I hadn't mentioned to you that I also ordered that during my day of delicious idleness. Skeindalous, I am extremely grateful for your comment about size with the Leapman hat. Lest I forget, I immediately cast on 120 and have done the first four rounds of that interesting rib. The size looks perfectly reasonable so far. The yarn seems fully as cosy as advertised, and the colour is very good, something close to terracotta.

I have a theory that knitting with red is helpful for SAD-sufferers during the very dark days of a northern winter. Here we are not even a month past the equinox. I fear I will have finished my reds before the crunch comes. Maybe not – the Dunfallandy border is going to involve a lot of knitting, and with the baby not due until March I can afford to string it out a bit.

Melfina, you're right that that blue cabled hat in the new VK is very attractive. I have an irrational and deep-seated prejudice against bobbles, but they are very small here and the cables are very interesting. I have a prejudice at least equally strong in favour of cables.

The pattern doesn't seem to say what weight of yarn the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino is meant to be. I notice that that hat casts on 136 stitches, even more than I have cast on for my hat. There will probably be some lovely Zealana left over (I have three balls) and the VK hat might make a good sequel. I'll know more about size at that point.

I spent some time with Curls, at first totally baffled but I think I'm getting it, and am of course tempted to cast on a few stitches just to see what happens. I have some left-over madtosh sport weight which might be just the thing...

As for actual knitting, I am within a few rows – but they are slow ones – of finishing the third (of eight) Dunfallandy triangle. I should be able to polish that off today and figure out what has been going wrong with the final row. Then – one more triangle? Or back to the sleeveless vest?

Non-knit

James rang up last night to talk about arrangements for my husband's 90^th birthday, which falls next month. He had tried last weekend but I slammed down the receiver because the Scotland-Samoa match was in its crucial last 12 minutes. I apologised, but warned him that Scotland was playing another crucial match this weekend (which we will probably lose).

He said, “I won't even ask what sport we are talking about.”