Well, I’ve finished the shawl row that was giving me so much trouble, and the plain-vanilla one that follows. Now to get back on my feet.

In lace, as in Fair Isle, one relies on what one has already done to keep one straight for the future. It's a bit harder to do, with lace. That row was enough of a mess, at least for the first two borders, that that’s not going to work anyway. It’s a perfectly simple pattern – lace chevrons with a couple of roundels in the very middle. We shall see.

And you’re quite right, Mary Lou, that it’s going to be scrumpled up around the baby anyway. This is a take-it-to-the-pub-for-lunch shawl, not a present-at-Buckingham-Palace. But it’s sort of humiliating that I, who have knit Sharon Miller’s Princess, can’t even do this any more.

The cats tried to help last night, like furry Rumplestiltskins but less successfully. No stitches were lost, fortunately. Tonight I have put it away out of their reach, as I should always but occasionally forget.

Non-knit

More snow fell today, and it’s been cold. I haven’t been out, and it’s been a bad day on the weakness-and-lack-of-appetite front as well. I think the forecast promises better for tomorrow. I am going to have coffee again with my neighbour four stories up, and dread the climb as it might be the north face of the Eiger. It’ll be nice to see her when I get there.

My beloved cleaning woman comes tomorrow. I may seize the opportunity to put the knitting straight early in the day, while she gets the rest of my life in order.