Droopy. Helen came, and got me over to the garden, but half-way around we were threatened with a cloudburst (it was that sort of day) so we cut the adventure short. There were a few heavy drops, but it didn’t rain, then or later.

When I woke up this morning I found my knitting in bed beside me. A kindly thought on the part of some furry person. But unfortunately some thirty stitches or so – it’s slippery yarn – had slid off the end of the needle.

I struggled for a while this afternoon, and soon decided that the only thing to do was to take the whole thing back to a sound row. This is what lifelines are for, and I didn’t have one. I’ve done that, and have embarked on the task of retrieving the stitches. We’ll see. All I want is something that will pass the most cursory inspection.

Reading

I’ve finished “Love in a Cold Climate”. It’s good, and the ending is superb – Mitford finds a happy ending for four disparate characters in a single page, in a manner that would have left Trollope gasping.

I was struck with how similar in some respects the setting was to Trollope, 50 or 60 years earlier. The substructure of domestic service was there, and taken for granted. Even the money – a newly-impoverished couple have to live on £300 a year. That’s a sum that wouldn’t have been quite so limiting for a pair of Trollope’s characters, but we’re in the same ball park. Whereas if you add another 50 years you find yourself in 1970 and everything is completely different.

I’ve started reading Barbara Pym’s “A Glass of Blessings”. I was surprised to find it on my Kindle, and even more surprised when it fell open to an advanced chapter. I don’t remember a syllable of it. It’s tremendously ‘50’s. I’m awfully glad to have escaped from that decade.

Amyfibre (comments yesterday), thank you for the information about the Democratic convention. It sounds as if Theo should be busy and happy for a few weeks yet.