There has been no more news from Perthshire. Helen said she would be back tomorrow. We shall see. Computer weather seems to suggest that Kirkmichael is bitter, bitter cold but dry. A few flakes of snow have fallen in London, sending the nation’s weather-writers into a tizzy of excitement. There has been nothing like that in Edinburgh yet; just much cold.

 

Again, I didn’t go out. I’ve been exercising conscientiously.

 

And knitting. If I ever knit one of these haps again – it’s not impossible – I’ll leave one corner open and knit the garter stitch border back and forth. I found myself wondering today, as I toiled through yet another enormous-seeming purl round, why purling seems so uncomfortable. I am self-taught, in early adolescence. My mother didn’t knit, and grandmothers, who both did, were distant. I drop-and-throw. I have many times tried to teach myself a more efficient method, including doing that Craftsy class on Portuguese knitting. No luck. Arne and Carlos offer some hope, perhaps. Anyway, looking at my hands, I don’t see why drop-and-throw purling should be much different, as a physical experience, from drop-and-throw knitting. But it is. And this seems to apply to other forms of purling as well.

 

Wordle: I allowed myself to be seduced today by the NYTimes’ subscription offer, which would include a commentary on my Wordle technique. The result is that I have lost my stats. It doesn’t really matter much. I know that my percentage was 90. It will probably be better from here on out. And my commonest score was 5. I was hoping to get the 4’s to overtake it. Maybe I can even achieve that. I was more careless in my early days, and used a lot of Jean-words. I try much harder now to make every word, after the two starters, a possible answer.

 

Today: Silence, so far (6:15 p.m.) from Alexander. That’s most unusual. His wife Ketki is alive, anyway: she and her sister-in-law Rachel both scored three. Mark and I got four. Thomas and Theo, the young generation, needed five.