My sister and her husband left this morning for London and are presumably, by now, safely established in Sydenham with the James Mileses. It wasn’t as sad as some partings are, at our age – we’re all planning to see each other again next summer at Joe Ogden’s wedding to Becca (he’s Rachel’s second son).

And meanwhile Archie got the new printer to work from this computer, and we’ve printed out all our paperwork for Italy including our EasyJet boarding passes. Today we went up to John Lewis and bought a lot of Euro’s at their Bureau de Change since the Bank of Scotland had proved unhelpful on the subject.

That leaves a couple of little things to do, inevitably, the welfare of the cats to secure, but we’re essentially ready and neither of our passports has expired.

Maureen and I met up here before going out to our lunch on Tuesday, so I was able to introduce her to my cats and to Archie himself, whom she particularly enjoyed meeting. She should be back in Fargo by now, or nearly.

I celebrated, if that’s the word, by casting on a swatch for Gaughan’s “Foldlines” – the swatch is, sensibly, one of the pattern squares. I’m about halfway through it. It’s not entirely easy, and I think I can see a mistake, but it’s not entirely difficult, either, and would surely get easier as the sweater progressed. It requires a light-coloured wool, and I haven’t got one in madtosh DK. I’m using Burnt Hatch Chillis, or whatever it’s called. And the result will give me the size of the square. And that's what's required of a swatch. I might even wash and block it.

Meanwhile I’ve got to finish Rachel’s sock before next Thursday, to free the sock needles for Italy knitting. Plenty of time, including this evening.