All is well – it has been a delightful spring day. C. and I got once around the garden. She is going to be vaccinated tomorrow! 2387 steps – could be worse, by my feeble standards.

 

Helen has a major mosaic commission, which is to be executed largely here because I’ve got so much unused space and her studio isn’t up to it. So today she was here with a mosaic-making colleague who has been employed to help. Even Archie, I think, is to be paid for cutting tesserae, when we get to that stage. And it will be very nice for me to have these people about.

 

I have spent much of the day (knitting and) listening to Mr Salmond testifying. It will be interesting to hear the news, in half an hour, and discover how a professional distils all that. Essentially his plan was (I think) to enrol himself on the side of the committee which was questioning him and against the Scottish government. He didn’t involve Mrs Sturgeon in particular any more than he had to.

 

Much of it was, to me, obscure to the point of incomprehensibility, but it was interesting because everybody on-screen cared so much. In my teaching career, I always rather enjoyed invigilating GCSE exams, because they were so important to everybody. The room crackled with it.

 

The Polliwog progresses. The current instruction, alternating three-row stripes of main colour and contrast colour, is to proceed until I have knit 17 (small size) or 20 (large size) of each. I’ll soon be able to photograph it for you.

 

Life

 

Still no reading to speak of, and no Italian composition despite good resolutions.

 

Joe and Tamar – I realised after I had restored the fuse yesterday, that I should have first ascertained whether the washing machine was involved. It had finished its lengthy cycle – surely if it was responsible, the fuse would have blown while it was labouring on? I worried for quite a while about whether my beloved electric Aga could have quietly expired. It retains heat, and it would have taken quite a while for failure to be obvious. But it’s fine. I haven’t run the washing machine again since, nor has any disaster manifested itself today.

 

Rugby tomorrow. Rachel and Ed’s youngest, Lizzie, is locked down with them, with her boyfriend Dan. He had hoped to go home for Christmas – there’s an infant nephew or niece he hasn’t met yet. He assumed then (as we all tend to do) that everything would be back to normal by February – but no, he’s still locked down with Rachel and Ed and Lizzie this weekend, for his 30^th birthday. All he wants, Rachel says, is for England to beat Wales. I’ll try, for Dan’s sake, but I find it awfully difficult to cheer for England. Them in their white suits.