I am restored to a more “normal” level of lifelessness. Daniela and I got around the garden. It has been a grey, windy day, much warmer than the last few. Tulips have joined the daffodils in Drummond Place Garden.

 

James and Cathy are coming to see me at the end of the week. And Archie was speaking of moving in for a couple of nights before that. Excitement all round. This is the second of the three weeks Helen will be away. Her middle son Mungo has joined her in Ravenna, and her husband David will be there soon.

 

I’ve cast off the first legwarmer – can’t really call it finished, with all those ends to deal with. The pattern wants me to block it, too. I’ve got one of those foot-forms, used for blocking socks. A knitterly friend of Alexander’s on Loch Fyne gave it to him to give to me, perhaps in a clutter-reducing phase, so it will be fun to use it.

 

But meanwhile I have done the top ribbing for the second legwarmer, and it’s therefore time to knit the Calcutta Cup. I don’t know what I’ve done with the chart I must have made for wee Hamish’s vest (above). The only one I can readily find is for ’06. That was for Ketki, I think. At least it gives me the cup. I also can’t find the book which usually supplies me with the chart for knitting numbers – I probably didn’t put it back on the shelf after doing Hamish’s chart. That’s not a problem, however, except that it’s a book I’m particularly fond of, a large BBC paperback from long ago. But there are plenty of number charts out there on the internet.

 

Wordle: A more normal distribution this morning – five for me and Ketki; four for Alexander and his son Thomas; three for old-friend-Mark.

 

I meant to remark yesterday that I’ve been to Polphail, the subject of the last essay in Kate Davies’ Cowal Penninsula book. It is – or, was – a village purpose-built for workers on a projected oil rig that never happened. It was briefly famous for the graffiti which came to decorate it. I saw it (on a visit to Alexander and Ketki) either just before or just after seeing Jupiter Artland, a remarkable collection of outdoor art, just outside of Edinburgh. Many well-known British artists are represented. It must have cost a lot of money to assemble, and it costs quite a bit to view, too. Whereas at Polphail you just climb over the gate, noting the sign about being respectful of bats. Arte povera and arte ricca.

 

I forwarded the Kate Davies essay – not by her, in fact – to Alexander and Ketki. He has sent me a portfolio-ful of his photographs of Polphail.

Comments

Helen (anon): Thank you for my limerick!!!

Kirsten: Thank goodness for your father's bank! Alexander says that my scammers of Saturday would have got control of my computer if I had gone ahead to do whatever they were going to tell me to do to "fix" my ISP address, and that might well have meant access to my bank account.