A great day for books.

I’m reading Kate Davies’ “Handywoman” at a gallop, and enjoying it very much. It is astonishing how rapidly she has lept from Beginning Knitter to Famous Designer, quite apart from having that trajectory interrupted by her stroke. But for the stroke, she would almost certainly never have attempted it. She is clearly much happier and more fulfilled in her present life than in her pre-stroke one. She understandably resists throughout the slightest suggestion that the stroke was a good thing in any way. I haven’t finished yet – maybe these contradictions will be resolved in the last chapter.

And “Knitting in Antarctica” is here too. I have only flipped through it, and look forward to a leisurely study. Antarctica is a totally inhospitable continent, of course. There is no native population. The knitters are there to work, and the patterns are all hats which they have devised. But there is plenty of information about the place and the experience of living there,  and photographs, and it looks fascinating.

As for me, I’ve now done 14” of Kirigami, and wound and joined in the next skein. And Neil MacGregor has got on to monotheism.

Games Day tomorrow. I almost certainly won’t appear here. If we were in Kirkmichael, we would already have driven down to the field and left our car (well supplied with beer and cider) in a choice spot by the track. Then in the morning we would carry our picnic down in a cold box and be ready to feed the Five Thousand.

Archie is coming to lunch on Sunday and I have an early-morning Italian lesson by Skype from Rome itself. But I should be fit, nevertheless, I hope, to report on the Games later in the day,

I meant to tell you that my toil-up-the-hill yesterday enabled me to have a look, at last, at  our new fancy-schmancy restaurant. I was surprised to note that one of the items on the menu involved wild garlic. That plant appears in the spring and by this time of year has completely disappeared. Can fancy growers coax it forth all year round? Can you freeze it?