St Crispin's Day

 

I live well out of the world, to such an extent that its incursions make me unnecessarily nervous. Tomorrow is Quinn’s baptism. (Brother of wee Hamish, above.) Helen and David will come and get me and take me there. Nothing to worry about except the effort required to look fairly respectable. There will be a gathering of some sort afterwards, in the Garden Room adjacent to the university chapel. All on one level. And after that, something more prolonged at C’s house (Quinn's grandmother). She lives in a very nice flat which once formed the piano nobile of a town house, and the task of getting up (and, later, down) the stairs would be more than I care to attempt.

 

So if you don’t hear from me tomorrow, it is because I am prostrate, but I don’t really expect that to happen.

 

I slackened up a bit on the knitting today. I now have half a dozen more rows to do on the second cable panel of the MKAL shawl, followed by an i-cord bind-off. And one of those rows is a cable row.

 

So now we have our new Prime Minister. He has been to the Palace for hand-kissing. All the commentators were keen to explain that no actual contact of ministerial lips on Royal Hand was involved. Perhaps even the smooth Mr Sunak hasn’t mastered that wonderful dip of the head which Italian men can do so well, when offered a hand to shake. It means “I kiss your hand” without making a fuss about it.

 

Wordle: my two starters yielded nothing this morning except one green vowel (and, of course, nine eliminated letters). I gritted my teeth and allowed myself nothing but a possible answer, No Jean-words today. It wasn’t right, but it produced another green, and I got the answer on the fourth line. Four is my favourite score, as you know – the fours now outnumber the fives by two. Four was a popular score today, as well: Alexander and Ketki and Thomas and Mark, besides me. Theo and Daughter-Rachel needed five; Granddaughter-Rachel six.