There’s a wonderful new post from Kate Davies, with wonderful photographs – we’re getting closer to her new yarn and new club. I am not greatly enamoured of tweed yarns, but I’m more than willing to be persuaded, and am trusting the club to brighten these short, dark days.

Thank you again for all your comments. Iron deficiency is an interesting idea. I went to see the dr not all that long ago. He took “bloods” and prescribed vitamin D and said to come back in six weeks. They must have more or less elapsed by now. I’ll certainly mention iron when I get there again.

I’ve finished the eighth – the penultimate – ribbon in Miss Rachel’s Yoke, and indeed have started the ninth. I think we will all agree that when we are worried about whether or not there is enough yarn, we need to knit fast in order to get to the end of whatever-it-is before the yarn gives out. Well, it worked. I won’t attempt to use the fragment remaining for the neck ribbing.

So I should be able to polish off this project altogether within a very few days.

And I think I may have decided what to knit for the next great-grandchild. Instead of repeating Mrs Hunter’s shawl (see Wednesday), I could repeat the one I knit for Archie, 21 years ago. It’s an Amedro design, originally called the “My Weekly Baby Knits Shawl” and now sold as a kit by Jamieson and Smith under the name “Sletts Shawl”. It is hard to decide which is the less appetising title.

Helen and David’s eldest son died at 6 ½ weeks. When the pregnancy began which was to produce Archie, I had never knit anything finer than jumper-weight. That first effort (lace-weight) was a success. It would be nice to use Shetland Supreme Lace-Weight, perhaps in fawn. Would that be too gloomy?

Helen is safely back from Kirkmichael. She brought me an apple from our unproductive tree, and the news that our neighbours in the Big House will be leaving next summer, hoping to sell on to another branch of the family. That's what passes for exciting news, in a village. She says there were lots of deer about.