Safely home. The cats are well: glad to see me, I think, although it is not entirely easy to tell with a cat. Perdita was watching from the window of the Catalogue Room, and meowed a greeting as I came up the steps. Paradox has been purr-y and cling-y since, including sitting on my chest in the night, purring and touching my face with a gentle paw – which, alas, she was flexing in time with the purrs so it was sort of prickly.

 

We had a grand time. I wrote to my Loved Ones every day. I’ll dole out bits of that here, and photographs, as we go on. Here’s a picture of me in the tender, to start with:

That must have been at Portree. I came back before any of the others. That was the only day I went ashore. Most of the other passengers were vigorous retirees in their early 70’s. C., who is not yet that, was almost the youngest.

 

We got to Cape Wrath, the upper left-hand corner of the mainland of GB. The Majestic Line had never reached it before – this particular route was a recent addition to their list; several repeats of it had been cancelled, last year and this; and others had been deterred by the weather. Here’s our crew, recording the event: from left to right, cook, skipper, bo’sun, engineer. They were all superb. The lighthouse is by one of the Stevenson family.

 

I didn’t knit as much as hoped. Mostly I just stared vacantly into space. But the Pairfect socks are finished, and I am six or seven inches advanced into a pair of Kaffe-patterned Regia’s. I like a substantial amount of ribbing on a sock, although I don’t like knitting it. I am inclined to press ahead with this pair until I have finished the ribbing on the second sock, leaving it, thus, at a point when it is very likely to be finished (eventually).

 

And I’ve finished Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet series. Book 4 is perhaps a bit weak, as the author dutifully kills or marries-off  each of her characters.

 

More to follow.