I had an uneasy feeling yesterday, Gretchen, that I had told you the Galileo story before. Cat, thank you for confirming my suspicions that it is a joke Italians make in such circumstances. I think Galileo might be pleased to be so remembered.

Thanks, too, for help with my problem about charging the iPad. Alexander came to see me today and confirmed your opinion, Maureen and Mary Lou, that the cord is likely to be at fault, especially if it’s not actually an Apple cord (can’t remember). I found another one lying about that seems to work, for the moment. I was especially interested to have you confirm my experience, Mary Lou, that a cord which charges a telephone won’t necessarily charge an iPad.

Knitting

Well, I seem to be stuck with this Dathan. It wasn’t intended. I still haven’t reached 200 stitches – and I’m going to need 597. Can I finish by Christmas? Maybe a picture tomorrow. I don’t think “creativity” comes into it much, despite KD’s prose – the first one worked because the various colours of her Milarrochy tweed work so well together, and this one is doing fine because of the harmony of the grab-bag of Shetland jumper weight in autumnal colours which I bought at Wilma Malcolmson’s studio in Shetland in May.

All or most of the yarn seems to be from Uradale Farm, which we also visited on a different day, and where I also bought yarn, so maybe it is just that I have got things mixed up. Today I went to the Uradale website and ordered a couple of balls of red. We had soup and bread for lunch every day on our Shetland Wool Adventure: Ronnie Eunson’s at Uradale was the most delicious. His yarn is beautiful, too.

Andrew and Andrea turned up on Tuesday, on schedule, despite the fact that the previous episode had been postponed by illness. The big interview is with Esther Rutter, the delightful author of “This Golden Fleece”. I am somewhat tempted. I found this review in the Guardian which augments the temptation.