Perdita has been booked in for spaying. Helen will take her down to the vet tomorrow morning for a pre-op consultation. I am deeply distressed. Fortunately the.poor animal won't worry.

Thank you for your kind comments. The fireplace, pre-mosaic, was a blank square of plasterboard. We have other open fireplaces (although we've never lit a fire in this house). I think Helen made the mosaic flat on a workbench in her studio. It came here supported from behind on some sort of adhesive mesh. Most alarmingly, on Installation Day, she cut it apart into six or seven pieces which she and the nice Grouting Man then assembled into the fireplace.

I suspect that mosaic-making, like knitting, takes so long to do that it's hard to make a living. 

I'm very pleased with the shawl. The colour looked a bit sepulchral to start with, but now seems like the sort of thing a costume designer would choose for a poor-but-honest character in a 19th century television drama. That's what I want. This is to be a shawl for use -- for bundling up a summer baby and taking it down to the pub for lunch.

I reached row 40 today, the first border decrease row. That’s a landmark, surely. And I'm nearly halfway through the border -- that'll be another. And I'm nearly finished with the second row of motifs and ready to start, in row 43, the third and final one. Yet another!

The tax went well, too. I think all the hard work is done -- Syngenta is no more, whatever it was. That simplifies things. 

I had a funny recorded phone call today. A man with a deep voice told me that HMRC (=Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) was initiating a case against me. "To speak to your case officer, press One." 

Phishing, presumably. The tax man may well come for me one day, but I don't think it will be quite like that. But the call was well-calculated and well-timed to prey on January's anxieties, and sounded almost authentic.

Non-knit, non-tax

The January 16 New Yorker pitched up here today. My husband and I increasingly find that we can’t understand the cartoons. My sister is coming for a visit in early Feb – it might be instructive to have her take us through the then-current issue.

But on page 56 of today’s issue is one we will cut out and keep in our current bedtime-reading book: “Look alive, Proust, you’re next”. We’re doing rather well with Proust.