Little to report. The Stronachlachar is 10 ½ inches,  carelessly measured on the kitchen table. I need 16, to qualify for the underarm shaping. I’ve finished the third pattern repeat, and have nearly finished the third of seven skeins.

I wouldn’t quite call it a resolution, but I think perhaps if I huddle in the kitchen watching Netflix on my iPad, I can knit at the same time. When I try to watch television in the sitting room in the evening, the needles tend to drop from my nerveless fingers. Perhaps the chair is too comfortable.

I also mean to read slightly more serious books, fewer “yellows” as we call them in Italian. I read a lot. I have embarked on “Enthusiasm” (church history) by R.A. Knox, which is a flesh and blood book from my own shelves; and “The Egoist” on the iPad (it was free).

We shall see.

Thank you, as ever, for your help with my various problems. I think maybe “Rock Island” will do as it stands, at least to offer to Jenna. It’s a good size. And thank you, Mary Lou, for “Orvus Paste”. It’s available here, and I am interested to see that it is used for whitening horses.

And Helen (anon) – what you say about “candidatus” awakens dim memories of my own long-forgotten education. I actually saw the apparatus for suspending a newly-knit shawl over burning sulphur when I went to Shetland with Kristie and Kath that happy time.  But how, exactly, was the necessary whiteness for “candidatus” achieved? I doubt if the answer would help much with Hellie’s shawl.

Now I’m going to go watch a cookery programme, while I knit. My husband abhorred the genre, and often said that he regarded cookery programmes as pornography. Tonight it’s Tom Kerridge, teaching people how to cook from scratch.