A good day, starting with a good Italian lesson. Dante is glorious. We're sticking with him for at least another week. Federica doesn’t seem unduly worried about viruses, although she says it’s particularly hard for Italians to give up hugging and kissing each other.  Helen dropped in after an early Broughton Street hair appt and walked me around the garden twice. A new kitchen table got delivered. I’ll leave unpacking and assembly until I have help. I watched some rugby (England-Wales) but got bored.

And knitting went well. I’m doing row 76 of the Cameron Shawl border. When I’ve counted all the way back to zero, the next thing to do will be to start again from the beginning and knit another, identical piece – and then, using both, construct the centre. The moment when this first piece is finished might be a good one for pausing and considering my options.

Coronavirus

Tomorrow’s match – the one Alexander and his family are coming over for – is Scotland-France. The women’s teams were scheduled to play an equivalent match, but that has been cancelled because one of the Scotland women has tested positive for you-know-what.

Perhaps she picked it up when Scotland played Italy in Rome a fortnight ago. Are we quite sure that everybody else is all right? Perhaps they’ve all been tested, men as well as women. Rugby is an awfully physical game.

James and his wife Cathy have both been having very nasty colds/flu's, lasting a fortnight in each case. They phoned the GP and were told to phone 111 and arrange to be tested, but when they tried, 111 wasn’t interested. They have since both seen a doctor (the GP? or someone else?) who wasn’t interested in the coronavirus either. Presumably James hasn’t been to China recently, but he must meet Chinese people all the time. It seems odd.

On the other hand, I read something about symptoms somewhere today. COVID-19 is a dry cough and fever; the common cold is sneezing and something else. Maybe a doctor can sort of tell by looking and asking questions.