Wordle in five today, my ush. My two starter words gave me four brown tiles – almost an anagram problem, at which I’m no good. For guesses Three and Four I abandoned the high principles enunciated here yesterday, and guessed words that couldn’t be right, either because they didn’t use all four of my brown tiles, or because they did use one of the six letters I had eliminated, or both. Guess Three was useful, however, because it turned two of the brown tiles into green ones. Four was a complete waste of time. For Five I tightened my belt and submitted a word that might actually have been right, and it was. I will have to be firmer with myself tomorrow.

 

Helen is home from Greece. She came to see me this morning, and we got around the garden. She is distressed at how much the cost of petrol has gone up in the week she was away. She is going to Italy to study mosaics in Ravenna – where better? – next week.

 

I got the census done.

 

And the Baby Surprise is advancing. For those who have done it: one begins with quite a lot of stitches. One marks two of them, a quarter of the way in from each end, and begins by doing a double decrease at those two points every other row for quite a while. Then you switch to increasing at those points instead. That’s where I am, or just beyond. Cully says that that means I am at the underarm of the jacket, and he has illustrations which more or less prove it.

 

No button-sewing. I guess maybe that will wait until the Baby Surprise is ready. For that one, EZ says to postpone the buttons until you know the sex of the recipient.