So here we are, waiting.

I’ve heard nothing from the hospital. Private care is expected soon – I could have put her off until tomorrow, but my husband was weak yesterday. I will be glad to have someone here when he is delivered, even if, in fact, it means that she will just be sitting around for most of the time. Or all of it.

Gosia has just been here for two hours, so there is not much that needs to be done. The bed is ready. The sitting room has been tidied (mostly of knitting) and hoovered. The cat has had a wonderful morning helping with everything, and has now gone to sleep in front of the Aga.

I found my Edinburgh Yarn Fest receipts without much difficulty, and have printed them: Carol Feller on gradient yarns, Tomofholland on darning, Woolly Wormhead on sideways-ness. It all seemed wonderful in October – all I needed to do was secure an extra hour of mid-day private care, and off I could go. Confronted with actuality, it’s not that easy.

I’m not that strong. 

I’m still hoping I can do one of them – it will be hard to choose. And I’m still very much hoping I can get to the market – everybody who is anybody in British yarn-production will be there, and Kate Davies has even said she hopes to see me there.

In the course of all this, I found an old email which seemed to say that Carol Feller would suggest some gradient yarns for us before the class. That hasn’t happened. I carefully re-read the class specification yesterday – she really does mean “gradient”, not hand-painted skeins that go round and round.

I’ve got another Knitcircus sock set, besides the one I’m knitting. I can take that. But I also, yesterday, went ahead and ordered two sets of Pigeonroof graduated skeins from Loop – to knit Milo Bambino for the great-grandchild. We’ve pretty well reached the any-moment-now stage on that one.

I felt, on the one hand, uneasy about ordering the yarn before we’ve actually got the baby. And, on the other, why not? When Rachel and Ed got married, an unbelievable number of years ago, he forbade her to wear something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue – God’s love is not to be so constrained, he said. And he was right.

I’m afraid that what follows reveals an unpleasant side to my character: I was pleased to discover that one of the very few things you can still sign up for, and pay for, at EYF is Susan Crawford talking about the Vintage Shetland Project, and showing a film. She still has no book to promote. I’ll skip that.