Another pretty good day. Archie came; we went to the supermarket; I’m ready for Thursday’s lunch party, more or less. Only six people – could be worse. Then he got my printer going again – all it needed was more ink, but why didn’t it say so instead of just suddenly spewing out blank pages? I celebrated by printing Gudrun’s hap pattern from her Craftsy class and even while I was doing so, the postman arrived with the South African colours.

I cast on while he was probably still in Drummond Place. It starts with the centre square which is a corner-to-corner number like the pocket square I knit the other day. Garter stitch, and every row begins with a YO. You only have to go up to 144 stitches, a mere bagatelle for us Dathan knitters. (And then, of course, back down again.) I’ve already got 46 stitches, without effort.

The yarn is splendid (Jamieson & Smith jumper weight, of course). It is to be a basic wrap-up-a-baby hap, with four Old Shale stripes in the border. From the centre outwards, they will be black, green and gold for the old ANC flag. Then the final stripe will be red, a colour which is in the modern South African flag. The basic colour is a quiet beige to suggest the parched grass of a South African summer. That was a brilliant idea, and I have forgotten which one of you suggested it. (I could look it up.) It would have been disastrous to incorporate another colour from the modern flag – my original idea.

Then Archie’s cousin Alistair, another grandson of mine, came to lunch. He works as a computer programmer for a major UK gaming company here in Edinburgh. He seems in good form. For his first year after university, he worked for a bank and wasn’t terribly happy. He approached the gamers cold turkey, and they took him on at a smaller salary, and it was clearly the right thing to do. He’s now on holiday until early Jan.

Tomorrow C. and I are going to see “Ordinary Love”. I don’t see how it could be other than cloying, but I suspect we will enjoy it.