I have spent the afternoon in Palermo and am exhausted.

Dominic Cummings seems secure in his job at the moment, although there are signs of growing unrest in his own party, and a junior minister has resigned. It was clear from yesterday’s press conference that Cummings regards himself as indispensable to the management of the UK. And it’s equally clear that the Prime Minister agrees. It’s a very odd situation in the midst of a very odd world.

I succeeded in ordering the Countess’ “Ministry of Truth Twisting” yarn (see yesterday). The result will be my Cummings socks, I hope.

Palermo: some will remember that Archie and I, early in 2018, did a day of “Cooking with the Duchess” at her palazzo. Her husband, my age, is the adopted son of Giuseppi Tomasi di Lampedusa, the author of my beloved “Il Gattopardo”.  Now, of course, there are no tourists in Palermo, either taking cookery classes or staying in the elegant self-catering apartments which have been carved out of the palazzo.

So she’s teaching by Zoom. And today Archie and his brother Mungo did a lesson and I was invited to sit in. That’s all I did. I sat there knitting. But I’m tired.

I took a tape measure to the EPS sweater. The row gauge is 9 ½ if not 10 to the inch. You see what I mean about paint drying. Tomorrow I’ll work out where I want to be when I start the arms, and how much further that is from where I am now.