Nine Eleven

My husband was in pretty good form yesterday, but desperately unhappy about his continued incarceration. “Couldn’t I go to a holiday camp?” If he means a care home, this might be possible, although enormously expensive. He’d have a nice room, with books and pictures, and better food. Preliminary investigations were carried out more than a year ago, and we’ve chosen one with (amongst other attractions) a cat on the permanent staff.

But would such a move end forever the possibility of coming home, by cutting us off from the Lothian Council care system? I’ll try to talk to him about this today. I’ve never known anyone in care who wouldn’t prefer to be at home.

Knitting went well. The first Whiskey Barrel sock is finished; I hope to cast on the second today. And the Uncia is picking up speed. Two more rows to go in Chart B. I had hoped to polish them off yesterday evening, but, as so often, came home from the hospital stunned with exhaustion, ate, slept. I’ve been through the pattern and noted the errata, at least.

No luck with Lotus Organizer. I found the program disk and the memory stick all right – but it won’t load, presumably because this computer has advanced an operating system or two beyond its capabilities. Old sticky-keys uses an earlier system, and part of my problem in trying to access my notes is that I have forgotten how it works.

That’s a good idea, to set Archie at the problem. Once he has found Organizer on the older computer, I can at least copy my page of sock notes into Word and thence anywhere. And he can tell me how to turn the computer on and load Organizer. That is where I used to sit at the end of the year and write the list of what I mean to knit in the months ahead, including the Calcutta Cup celebration knit which is rarely needed. (Currently, Alexander’s Fair Isle vest) I’d be sorry to lose those lists, but where to put them?

Helen has an excess of boys next week – her middle son, Mungo, is coming home from Greece. He has been working all summer at the beach resort of an immensely wealthy friend. And Archie has invited his cousin Alistair to stay, James’ and Cathy’s son, about to start his third year studying computer science at Glasgow. And Helen’s Romanian friend/cleaning woman will also arrive, looking for work and thinking of relocating to Edinburgh.

So maybe Archie and Alistair could stay here, and help with my computer problems.

This might amuse – our downstairs neighbours are (alas) selling up and moving north. Their house and ours used to be one – the internal stairs survive, covered up and boxed in. The external street view, on the link I have provided, is much more us than them. You can easily discern my quince tree, and the raggedy curtains in the catalogue room. But we have diverged. I can assure you that my kitchen does not contain a five-door Aga and a range cooker. Golly.