Very cold. Not much more snow, but what there is (which is considerable) didn’t even drip in the midday sun. Another ski-ing day. So, again, I didn’t go out, and have achieved only 2285 steps, a good deal behind yesterday. 

But I’ve finished knitting Gudrun’s hap shawl. It’ll take a while – not very long – to finish off the ends. Then the big decision, about blocking. I hate to let it out of my hands. But if I block it on the double bed, I’d have to spend a night in the spare room, and I am curiously reluctant to do that. Nothing wrong with the spare room, especially since Helen got new beds for it. But it’s not my room.

 

Another thing I did – a fearful admission, worse than reading a book about Princess Diana – was to order some yarn for the Polliwog. You can hardly get in the door of this house, for yarn, but I decided that nothing was right. All my sock yarns are self-striping, and I needed something solid at least for one of the two Polliwog colours. It will be some John Arbon Exmoor sock yarn, from the Ginger Twist studio near here. Strong colours, verging on the alarming, such as the modern baby wears. I’ll show you when it gets here.

 

As for reading, I decided on “Sense and Sensibility”. It’s the one I know least, and is all the more interesting now that I’ve read Tomalin’s biography and know how it fits in to the oeuvre.

 

But I’ve also started Silone’s “Fontamara” in Italian. I haven’t made much progress with either.

Alexander sent me this wonderful picture of his family in their Calcutta Cub knitteds:

From left to right: J., in a sweater knit for Ketki; Ketki, in a sweater knit for Alexander; Alexander, in the vest which you can see at a half-way stage above; and T., in an almost invisible long scarf celebrating the glorious draw of 2019. 

That's Loch Fyne behind them, needless to say.