The wagyu was a disappointment. That’s where I’ll start. Archie and Fergus ate it nobly and said thank you, like well-brought-up young men. Mine has largely been thrown away — too tough. If I ever try again, I will hold out for imported Japanese. I had also ordered some cheese from the Fine Cheese Company — I’ve used them before — and that was sensationally good so all was not lost.

   Good weather. Has May started at last?

   And news from KD: my package has been dispatched. That will be the yarn for the MKAL. I thot they’d get it here in time.  Clue One is scheduled for next Wednesday.

 But I”ve done no actual knitting, what with spending the morning on anxious preparation for my little lunch party, and sleeping it off in the afternoon. I’m sleeping badly these days in bed at night — aching hip, incipient bedsores on my bottom, heavy, affectionate cat on my chest. My hip doesn’t allow me to turn onto one side or the other. So by day I sleep in my chair.

   I forge ahead with “Flowers for the Judge”.  Perhaps significantly, it is unusually, for Allingham, in the format of a conventional thriller. I’ll get it finished in time for its appearance in KD’s club, I’m sure. And it’s here in my Kindle library, so I must have read it before. I don’t remember much of it — perhaps significantly.

   Wordle: a toughie today. My starters gave me two browns, a v. and a c. I could think of a million Jean-words for every line, but genuine entries were harder to come by. Success in the end: six.

   Ketki was a fellow-six. Fives for Thomas, Mark, and Rachel. Four for Alexander — that counts as brilliant, today. Except that Theo scored an even more brilliant three. Roger had another five. At least nobody failed as could so easily have happened.