Perdita is fasting before tomorrow's surgery. She is beginning to get cross about it. I am miserable.

I remain very anxious about the tax. My sister points out that if I had an accountant s/he would be responsible for filing. I think a better (and much cheaper) solution would be to get it done earlier in the tax year. Whatever, I'm stuck now.

Thinking about (not that but) knitting charts in the night, I came to the same conclusion as several of you (although formless, in my case, and less well expressed) that it was advances in computer technology and desk-top publishing in the 80's and 90's, rather than the rise of common sense, which brought graphs to published knitting patterns. Traditional knitters must have been using them all along.

Mary Lou! I have knit Mrs Laidlaw's Pattern, too, in a gansey for Ketki in a tough pink yarn from Frangipani. It serves as something approaching a suit of armour. She wears it sometimes to rugby matches.That was when the question arose with my sister-in-law of whether the herring girls wore colour -- an issue I referred to briefly some weeks ago. I went to the shelf just now to get the book and to try to remember whether or not I charted the pattern. And the book wasn't there, although several lesser works on related topics were.

I am sunk even deeper into gloom. That is an essential book.

I knit that sweater in Strathardle. Could the book still be there? I find with the current shawl, too, that I can remember where I was when knitting different parts of it, but not how difficulties were resolved.

Actual knitting of the shawl went well today, as I had nothing else to do but knit and worry. I have reached row 61 (of 83) in the border. I am thinking about inserting a break pattern – k2tog, yo, all the way around – between the border and the centre. Mrs Hunter of Unst doesn’t have one, but need that stop me?

My sister also sent me this link to the Pussyhat pattern. You probably all have it already – somehow or other, I knew about the march and the hat but had missed the beginning of the conversation so didn’t know the pattern. My sister says someone is knitting her one, although she is not going to march.

My wonderful children are trying to arrange a weekend away for me. For awhile there we thought I might join the Loch Fyne Mileses in early March for the Calcutta Cup weekend. We could watch the match together, and then if Scotland win -- don't worry; they won't -- I could measure Alexander on the spot for his Fair Isle vest. It was Greek Helen rather than I who spotted the flaw -- that's the weekend of the Edinburgh Yarn Festival. 

If I’m not here tomorrow, it will of course be because I am trying to comfort my cat.