Another day. The second sleeve of the Evendoon has been somewhat advanced. Moorecat, you’re absolutely right that I need a bowl on my lap. I mean to use my wooden salad bowl, which is right there beside my chair. It is full of little bits of things – twists of yarn from former projects which I must now harden my heart and throw away. Meg says somewhere that she never throws anything away (any yarn, she means) – that’s a line it’s hard to forget. But completely irrelevant here. I'll get that done tomorrow.

 

I still haven’t taken a picture for you. The light goes so early.

 

Helen came, with her dog Farouk, and we got around the garden in a gentle rain. He’s a nice dog.

 

Language: we lived in Glasgow in Early Married Life – all four children were born there, in fact. In those days, workmen used to set forth in the morning with cans containing tea leaves and sugar. At lunch time they would knock on somebody’s door and ask for hot water. (We spent the academic year 1960-61 at Smith College in Massachusetts, and were interested to learn that workmen brought along their own electric percolators.) This happened once when my mother was staying with us, and I happened to be out. She told me about it afterwards. She had had to send the man away because she couldn’t understand what he wanted. I explained. She said, I thought maybe that was it.

 

Brexit is getting exciting, in these final few days. Helen is anti-EU, after all her years in Greece.

 

And Covid is fairly exciting, too. I have no idea when I might expect to get vaccinated. The website of my GP’s practice is no help.