I’m 4 or 5 rows short of finishing the front of the Stronachlachar. I hope I’ll polish it off this evening, and perhaps even pick up the back stitches again. Yesterday evening I went back to the sitting room and the television set (for Paxman’s program about the Queen’s children – I’m afraid I am fascinated by the royal family) – but hadn’t the strength to knit a single stitch.

I think I need to rearrange my day, such as it is, and bring knitting forward into the daylight hours.

I also think maybe I should go ahead and offer Becca that shawl. Maybe a new project is what I need. I abandoned the Calcutta Cup vest, after all – I’ve forgotten why – and resumed it triumphantly.

Jen A-C has launched her new techniques club. I’m tempted. It’s fun, being in a club.

Non-knit

We are all busy planning our July adventure, the trip to Joe and Becca’s wedding on the Isle of Wight which few of us have ever set foot on. It must have been one of, if not the, first bits of England I ever saw, sailing into Southampton in the summer of 1953. This time it looks as if Archie and I will fly to Southampton and make our way across the water somehow or other.

There is another big Dan Mallory story in today’s Times. The New Yorker has certainly caused a sensation. Today’s writer is slightly hostile to the New Yorker, complaining of length – New Yorker articles are routinely very long, these days; this one needs length – and of the absence of a “gotcha”.

I thought when I read the article that the resemblances between “The Woman in the Window” and the film “Copycat” made a good “gotcha”. But today I looked up Copycat, and the stories seem to be completely different despite the similarities in the setting.

The extraordinary thing about all this is that the book is so good, whatever the author’s faults.