My husband was taken back into hospital last night - or, rather, this morning; the ambulance didn't turn up until 5:15 a.m. I think he is all right; I think the dr was being over-cautious. I am about to set off towards the hospital to find out. I am afraid I hope they'll keep him in tonight so that I can sleep.

I'll leave you with this fragment, composed yesterday:

I have had a message from Kristie “North of 49” to say that the Socklady is in hospital in Kamloops, many miles from her mountain fastness, with pulmonary embolisms just like me. She says she feels “quite rough” which is worse than me, who only felt weak and remained convinced for quite a while that I was suffering only from stress.

There is nothing of this on her remarkable website, last posting December 22, link in sidebar. Kristie says she had a message through Facebook, a medium I have never mastered. I don't even know whether Lynne, the Socklady, has wi-fi and an iPad or whatever with her in hospital. I'd be grateful for any news anyone contrives to come by. I've emailed her.

The other news, completely non-knit, is that Greek Helen (a faithful reader of the blog) emailed: “No, it's steam. Lots of it. You see it lying like a low cloud every time you drive past.”

And from her husband David, not much later: “Sulphurous steam!  No doubt Leonidas and the other 299 Spartans took a dip there before the battle.”

So we've learned something rather wonderful about Thermopylae.