2664 steps so far today – but C. and I got around the garden twice. Why isn’t the count nearer 3000?

 

No knitting, I’m afraid.

 

And little to report. “Cocoknits” arrived – in German. I ordered it from Abebooks because Amazon was offering only German. If I were younger and stronger I would go back through my emails to establish, if possible, exactly what I ordered. There are lots of useful photographs, with arrows. I used to have a vague reading knowledge of German. I’m pretty sure I could piece it together on one of my better days. But it’s not what I hoped for.

 

Tomorrow is Calcutta Cup day – the annual rugby match between Scotland and England, which England nearly always wins. Especially in odd-numbered years, when the match is played in London. In the Good Old (recent) Days, the Calcutta Cup was always contested on the last day of the Five Nations tournament. (England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France). But since Italy was admitted, whenever that was, and it became the Six Nations, that convention has been discarded and England-Scotland is just one of the matches, on any old weekend. Since 2000 – now quite a long time ago – I have knit something to celebrate every Scotland win, and, indeed, the two draws.

There was once, in the Good Old Days, when my husband and I were walking home from Mass on a Five-Nations home match weekend, when some Young Persons, walking behind us, said, as we reached Drummond Place: "Sont jolis, ces batiments." I had to type it out in my head, but I haven't forgotton. And it's true. 

There won’t be spectators at Twickenham tomorrow. It’ll be odd.

 

I’ve finished “A Perfect Spy”. It’s hard to believe I could have read it before, and forgotten. Janet, yes, I’ve read Mary Lovell’s “The Sisters”, about the Mitfords, and I agree, it’s first-rate. I have kept a list, all last year and this ,of everything I have finished reading. I am horrified, looking through it, to see how many I can’t remember. I don’t know where to turn tomorrow, although there are lots of possibilities. Tonight is Dante – Italian lesson tomorrow.