I wouldn’t want to boast or anything, but I had an email from Kate Davies yesterday, asking about my obituary of Gladys Amedro. It was published in the Scotsman 15 years ago, but to get it from there she would have to take out a whole on-line subscription. I've copied it for her, of course. I think it was the last journalism I ever published. I am slightly horrified to see how long ago it was, and to find that I am older than Gladys Amedro ever got to be.

I  trust everybody has read Kate's recent post about her trip to Shetland – Feb 16, called “Generosity”. Amazing pictures. Her forthcoming hap book is going to be terrific.

 And I bet it’ll be published when promised. The latest news from the Vintage Shetland Project hopes for mid-April,  five months later than we were told when we cloud-funded.  She’s got to nip back to Shetland for one or two things “at the end of this month”. And that means she won’t be signing copies at the Edinburgh Wool Fest next month, another promise gone. She’ll sign book plates instead, and you can stick them in when you actually get a book.

I’m sure these delays will be forgotten in the fullness of history, but for the moment I remain cross. An English priest, now pretty well unknown, Ronald Knox by name, once said that a man’s first duty is to his plans. He was deliberately exaggerating, but there’s a germ of truth there.

 All well here. Archie is coming today, cutting his half-term holiday in Athens short by a few days in order to do some A-Level work in the National Library. I have made him chilli from Nigella’s new book, but his mother has just phoned from Athens to say that he and his cousin Alistair (James’ and Cathy’s son, computer science at Glasgow University) are meeting here this afternoon and going out to a movie. We’ll have the chilli tomorrow. It is said to improve on keeping. 

As for knitting, my fingers seemed cold and stiff yesterday, or maybe it’s that heel-turning involves a certain amount of counting and attention-paying. At any rate, I finally got around the heel of the Arne & Carlos sock and am now going full-speed-ahead down the foot. The sock odd-ball bag is gone; that was a mistake. But the sock bag contains two 100 gram+ skeins of madtosh Twist Light in Chicory. One is plenty for a pair of socks, so I wound the other to use as a toe-supplement when Arne & Carlos runs out.

It now turns out that Scotland is about to close the women’s prison. I wonder what will happen to my yarn?

And later on, I got back to the Sous Sous and have started the cabling for the fourth repeat. When it’s done, I’ll turn to the Tokyo shawl and press on until it’s finished.