I am sorry for the silence. I haven’t been doing any knitting, either. I must somehow get a grip on what remains of life. I have finished, but not yet bound off, the back of the half-brioche sweater. That’s all. Last night I dreamed that I had been buying yarn.

I had a grand time at Merchiston on Friday evening. There was an early and rather tasty supper with a dozen or more boys who asked intelligent and interested-sounding questions so that James could scarcely eat. They took this group picture for the school magazine. It is rather bleached by the late afternoon sun. It shows James, me, Archie, and his younger brother Fergus:

Archie said that the dress code specified in the three-line whip inviting them to supper was “smart casual”. The Drake boys clearly put the emphasis on the second of those words. Everybody else wore suits.

There were three or four dozen more at the subsequent talk. That went well too. It was a fun occasion. It was also nice having James here, not for Christmas or Easter or any Event that meant that we had to do anything.

When we were sipping our orange juice before our supper, a Chinese boy told James that he had seen him doing a podcast somewhere recently, and thought he spoke better Chinese than any other foreigner he had ever heard. That was very nice.

Yesterday was Perdita’s first birthday. We celebrated quietly.

All of this may or may not be of mild interest, but it’s not about knitting.

I trust we have all seen Kate Davies’ blog post about the final work on her haps book. Wonderful photographs as always. I’m greatly looking forward to that one. The next time we have a great-grandchild, if I’m still about, it will have a hap from that book.