Another day nearer the solstice. Tomorrow Helen and Archie and I are going to Glasgow to have lunch with Alexander. I meant to get his presents wrapped today, but didn’t. Perhaps I could just give him the presents with some wrapping paper. Or get started briskly in the morning instead of sitting hunched over the on-line Times for an hour.

Helen is going to drive, which will be very luxurious for me. I had thought to get the Palermo Socks cast on and started on the train. They can wait. I have never seen their Glasgow house.

I am very grateful for all of your advice about money. My sister has chimed in too, reminding me of unhappy experiences she and her husband had in Africa. I have opted – quite possibly too late – for the idea of a card onto which you load money and then use like a credit or debit card. That will at least limit the damage, if anything goes wrong. Assuming the card arrives in time.

I had my hair done today. That’s something achieved, I guess.

I thought, last night, that I had made a pretty thorough mess of two of the shawl borders. YO’s on the wrong side of the decreases, that sort of thing. I wasn’t going to rip back, no matter what. But it meant that I had to knit and knit (because the rows are so long) to get back to the trouble spot and assess the damage.

So that’s what I’ve been doing, and things aren’t as bad as I thought. I’ll pass the galloping horse test. And I’m more than halfway through Chart B. I feel that the current ball of yarn (second of eight) should give up the ghost soon, but it shows little intention of doing so.