I’ve been to the doctor and had my flu jab – a good thing done, and that’s it for today.

I had a grand time with Maureen yesterday, except that I forgot to ask her about those ponies in their Fair Isle sweaters with which she can be seen on Facebook. When Kristie and Kath and I were in Shetland however many years ago, we met the woman who knit the sweaters. Except that by now it may be new sweaters, and different ponies, and, who knows? a different knitter.

She brought me the 10^th anniversary Shetland Wool Week annual, with a nice introduction from the Duke of Rothesay (known as Prince Charles, further south), and many a jolly pattern and heart-stirring photograph. I will spend some time with that.

And she said – oh! be still, my beating heart! – that she was in a queue at some point with Andrew and Andrea, and fell into conversation with Andrew, and he said something that made it sound as if occasionally he reads this blog. I think, if I’ve counted right, that there is only a week to go before they’ll be here themselves, telling us all about Shetland.

I could never do Wool Week – the getting about from place to place, the hiring of a car, would be too much. So I appreciate these reports all the more.

We went out to lunch, and then I collapsed into bed. No knitting, yesterday.

We established, over lunch, that it was Maureen in early 2007, over coffee,  who suggested that I submit Sam the Ram as my Knitted Toy entry at the Strathardle Highland Games. I did, and not only won a First for Knitted Toy, but also the Glenisla Shield for the best handicraft entry. (And granddaughter Rachel, James’ and Cathy’s daughter, got the Mandy Duncan cup that day for the best children’s entry, and was on the front page of the Blairgowrie Advertiser the following week.) It was God’s way of marking our 50^th wedding anniversary a few days later, which otherwise would have passed unnoticed.

Non-knit

I think the Sakoolas's (see yesterday) are about to fade from notice. The dead man’s mother has raised £10,000 on cloud-funding (or whatever it’s called) and means to go to Washington and knock on the door of the White House. I wish her luck. One has to feel sorry for the Sakoolas children – one of them was in the car when the accident happened. If they don’t know already why they have been suddenly removed from school and taken home to the US, they’ll soon find out, and it’s a poor moral foundation for going forward into adult life.