A day of considerably less achievement, but still not negligible.

I have booked our tour of Murrayfield for Wednesday the 11^th. Me, and my niece C., and her son-in-law-to-be, M.

And that’s about it. I have knit a few more rounds – and realised a major mistake. My first attempt at Alexander’s Calcutta Cup vest had nine pattern repeats. I put a lot of mental energy into ensuring that the pattern was centered, front and back, so that the v-neck could arise from the centre of the X of an OXO, the way Meg does it.

When I started again, I had only eight repeats. Therefore all I needed to do was to start at the beginning of a repeat, and it would centre itself, since the repeats are alternately offset by half. But I am nothing if not a Blind Follower, even when the footprints to be followed are my own. I have started at the same point again. The motifs aren’t centered, and the v-neck will start at a random point.

My one comfort, at the moment, is that KD doesn’t seem to have centered the Machrihanish pattern and it looks fine. But her Fair Isle bands are narrower than mine. I fear Alexander’s vest will look unplanned. Perhaps I’ll measure it tomorrow and tell you how far I have advanced. Too far to turn back, that's for sure.

Non-knit

You may remember – at least if I mentioned it – that Rachel, in London, who enters the Wimbledon raffle every year, this year won tickets to the centre court on the second Friday – men’s semi-final day. (What she actually won, was the chance to buy two tickets. They still cost a bomb.) She has invited me to go with her.

Various considerations: my cruise returns to Oban on, I think, the Tuesday of that week. Will I be prostrate, or newly invigorated? That would still give me time to get back here, spend Wednesday in bed, and go to London on Thursday. It wouldn’t be worth the effort if Federer had been knocked out by then – but it would be worth a lot of effort to see him play. Something to think about.