No more news from London – this time, I think we can be pretty confident that no news means relatively good news.

Rugby: it was great to hear from you, Knitlass. It was a great match, in its stressful way. A year ago, we employed overnight care for my husband and I was meant to go to Kirkmichael with Greek Helen and her family. (Half term?) But the weather was bad, as now, and instead I stayed by myself in their Windsor Street flat for a blissful 48 hours, and watched the equivalent match in Paris in which Greig Laidlaw was injured. He hadn’t started again for Scotland until yesterday.

So it was rather nice that it was he who beat them. The score was 32-26, and he kicked 22 of those 32 points.

The first kick was a magnificent conversion. As in American football, there is a supplementary kick after a touchdown, for a couple of extra points. Unlike American football (if my antique memory serves) the kick must be made from a point 20 yards out (or whatever the rule is) from the point at which the touchdown was made. Sometimes the ball-carrier is able to run along behind the line and touch the ball down between the posts. Often, however, he is beset by the hounds of hell and is glad to be able to touch it down at all.

That’s what happened on Saturday, with Scotland’s first try. It was right in the corner. Laidlaw had to kick from the sideline. Once he had done that successfully, we didn’t really need to peer through our fingers whenever  he kicked again. He’s not young, as rugby players go. There won’t be many more such glorious days for him. We may hope, however,  that Calcutta Cup Day, in a fortnight, provides at least one more.

However, we’re here to talk about knitting. I have done one more pattern repeat of the baby shawl centre. The cardboard is showing through more than ever. The cardboard, in this case, is not my doing: that’s how Jamieson & Smith send out their Shetland Supreme 2-ply Lace Weight. It wouldn’t be a bad idea at all, however, to save some toilet rolls in case one ever had to wind lace-weight oneself.

Mary Lou, what a simple and brilliant idea: pay someone to set in a zipper! I will certainly add Amirisu’s “Harley” vest to my EYF Possibles List, with that solution in mind. I did it long ago, when I made a dress for myself to wear to Helen’s wedding, and farmed it out to someone to make the buttonholes and, I think, the covered buttons.  It's still around, that dress. I wore it to my husband’s funeral.