Well.

The yarn didn't turn up until after 2 – I had nearly despaired. I thought the postie would bring it mid-morning.

­I opened the box with avidity and pulled the plastic-wrapped packageof yarn out upside down. I had time to think, in rapid succession, before I turned it over: Oh, dear, there's no brown in that grey at all...The yarn looks awfully fine for DK...They've sent the wrong order; I'm going to have a struggle, sending it back.

Then I looked. It's the Tokyo shawl, in the dark colourway I wanted.

The card – with a nice design of slightly abstract-looking southwestern sheep – says “A gift from all your very loyal followers. Please enjoy!” The shop it comes from is not Webs at all, of course (who are sending me the madelinetosh order), but Tutto in Santa Fe. I wouldn't mind browsing there.

It may be from all of you as it claims, but some one individual must have thought of the idea and executed it. Thanks are inadequate. The yarn is more precious to me than spun gold. I will knit it in alternate sessions with the Sous Sous and wrap it around myself in all the winters left to me.

I rather dislike descending to the mundane, after that.

Nothing came from Loop except an email to say they had dispatched my order. Maybe they're not open on Monday. It will require a signature but if our usual postie is on duty she will sign for me while I enjoy the supermarket.

And as for knitting, I have now done everything else on Archie's sweater, and am approaching with trepidation the infamous neck edging. Beverly, I did email Bruce Weinstein, on your excellent suggestion. No response yet. And, Judith, I looked at the Ravelry discussion you referred me to, and I agree that Bruce's own Henley looks as if the edging goes all the way across the top of the placket.

So I started off that way, and have picked up 20 stitches from the placket edge to the first false raglan seam. If I go on at about the present rate, I will have 70 stitches by the time I reach the back-neck mid-point. The instruction says to pick up 112 in all. I would allow myself a certain latitude on that – say, perhaps, 110 to 120, but 140 is too many in a pattern so carefully written.

So I'll start again, this time omitting the placket. The top of the placket, after all, looks finished. What follows is not finished at all – I was adding stitches at the beginning or end, or both, of many rows and the result looks ragged. From the raglan seam on there's a chain, representing the 76-stitch original cast-on.

I'm thinking aloud here. A little mental arithmetic based on the figure in the last paragraph suggests that I should pick up 23 stitches on each front. Perhaps I'll do a bit more counting, after all, before I take out what I've done already.

We didn't go out yesterday, as hoped. The snow melted, but it stayed very cold. I got a bit done, other than cooking and knitting and making the bed, for the first time in quite a while. I repotted my cactuses (I have three) and sowed some chilli seeds and paced about the house with a tape measure looking for a spot six feet x six feet, unimpeded by furniture and not part of a major traffic avenue, where I could block the Unst Bridal Shawl.

Not easy. And the spot had to allow room at the edges for the blocker to crawl about. I have decided to try pushing the two single beds in the spare room together and doing it there. If it works, it will eliminate crawling. That's good. I must get it done before the end-of-month travel, so that my husband and Alexander can take it to London.

All that, and a new follower! the first for many a day. Welcome!

Snow, this morning. Not much, but more than Edinburgh has had all winter. It could mean that my husband won't venture out for a walk which would add a valuable hour to my morning. Not that I ever get much done .

But I got further forward with Archie's sweater yesterday than I thought I would – the front hem finished, the skein wound, the back flap (which is 1/2” longer than the front one) half done – I've just attached the red for the inner side. So, not much more knitting to do here. The front flap is tending to flip outwards, which would be a fault even if it weren't bright red on the inside. Blocking will have to be severe on that point.

That was terribly clever of you, Mary Lou, to remember the pattern involved. It hadn't occurred to me to try Ravelry since the pattern has only a generic name, Henley. And searching Ravelry for “Henley” was indeed next best to fruitless. But I found it easily, searching on the designer's name (Bruce Weinstein, in”Knits Men Want”). Lots and lots of people have knit it, and I am happy to report that it looks pretty good on men of all shapes.

I'm not sure the pictures help much with my problem – where, exactly, to start picking up stitches for the neck edging. But I think I have decided to go with my final thought, fortified by your comment, Jean. At least for my first attempt I will start the edging in the middle of the placket-strip.

Today is the big day when the madelinetosh Whisky Barrel for the Sous Sous pattern should arrive, and also, perhaps, the Jupiter Moon or whatever the stuff is called, from Loop, for the next attempt at a wedding pocket square. The first moderately successful attempt, using Rowan Cotton Glace, got to London safely but the bridegroom hasn't squared up to it yet.

Nothing of interest in Zite. I'v been flipping through Brooklyn Tweed's winter Look Book. On a day like this, as we huddle against the cold, I am much taken with the pattern called Rowe, another unfastened cardigan – they seem to follow me around – deeply cabled, very suitable for snuggling in. Brilliant photography throughout,  as we have come to expect.

Non-knit

Thanks for the help with my husband's putative trip to London. I forwarded your comment to the care team, Helen.

I must re-engage with my camera. All these pages if prose look more than a bit boring.

This week promises well, full of event but devoid of medical appts. And it begins with the drop of another digit in my Lenten weight. The weigh-in on Ash Wednesday was particularly horrendous which of course is a great morale-booster now.

Ireland beat England in a thriller. Everything seemed so much better than the match in Edinburgh the day before – the passion and commitment and skill of the players, the total involvement of the many thousands of people in the stadium. Rachel phoned in the evening – she had had a miserable weekend rugby-wise. Living as she does in a nest of Englishmen whom she loves, all devoted rugby fans, an Irish victory was no comfort to her. And the teetotal life is proving difficult, although it is Rachel's single-minded devotion to Lenten abstinence which inspires all the rest of us.

She has arranged to take the week off work while my husband is in London and I in Athens, so that should be fine. And Alexander, having driven my husband down, will stay there. I didn't know that until we saw them on Saturday. I thought maybe he was going to make two round trips. I had feared that too much of the burden would fall on James' wife Cathy. My husband has to stay with them in Sydenham because Rachel's house doesn't have a ground-floor lavatory. But clearly they have all been thinking hard and spreading the load.

I hope they can get him to the “Made in China” show in Dulwich, previously mentioned here – the Gallery has commissioned a Chinese fake of one of their pictures, and hung it in place of the original. Visitors are invited to spot it. I'm sure my husband will succeed, if they can get him a wheelchair and drive him to the door. Dulwich is a nice place to go, anyway, and they do lunch.

Knitting

I finished the front flap of Archie's sweater, and have made a good start on hemming it. I don't want to let all the sewing pile up to be done at the end. That's how things wind up in the UFO pile. I'll have to wind another skein of madelinetosh Composition Book Grey before I can knit the remaining (back) flap, so probably won't get much actual knitting done today. That will leave four whole skeins over. I can't remember bow I calculated how many to buy, but I clearly didn't do a very good job of it.

The neck: Thank you, Tamar, for your continued interest in this rather tedious subject.

It occurred to me during Mass yesterday – always a good time for reflection – that it would be possible to take the instruction “begin at the centre neck edge” au pied de la lettre. The two ribbed panels for the buttons and the buttonholes of course overlap completely. So the actual centre neck edge is in the middle of those panels. The best I can say of the photographs is that that solution is not ruled out. It would mean that the edging wouldn't overlap – the ends of it would be adjacent in the rare event of the sweater being worn fully buttoned up.

From Zite this morning: a scheme for renting a Jacob's sheep for £60 a year. They live – the sheep do – in the south of England. Renters will be sent enough wool for a jumper, and can buy extra for a larger jumper. The money will go to a good cause, the Teenage Cancer Trust. Jacob's wool is, I am afraid, scratchy (see yesterday) but they say a certain measure of lamb's wool from a neighbouring farm will be spun in for softness. It all sounds rather nice and well-intentioned and amateur. Here's the link.

Sure enough, Italy won. Scotland started off with real fizz, and lead throughout the match until Italy were awarded a penalty try in, literally, the final minute of play. It was a fine spring afternoon, to begin with. A hard, cruel rain was falling at the end. That has something to do with what students of literature call the Pathetic Fallacy.

Wales beat France in Paris, no small achievement. Ireland-England will be this afternoon.

Knitting round and round Archie's large sweater is ideal for rugby-watching. I've finished the two extra inches I decided to add to the body and have now embarked on the terminal flaps.

Pattie and Tamar, thank you for your (convergent) help on the question of whether to include the tops of the button bands in the neck edging. There is a close-up photograph, Pattie – good question – but it doesn't entirely help. I can't see any sign of a break between the placket and the rest of the neck edge, but I can't see any sort of conclusion at the outer edges of the plackets, either.

It's just possible that the number of stitches to be picked up might offer a hint. I'll work on that a bit. The edging is the simplest and smallest possible – pick up the stitches with the right side facing. Purl back, on the inside. Knit one row. Knit another row, for the turn. Knit one row, purl one row, for the inside. Bind off. Fold and hem down to the picked-up stitches.

Yesterday I ordered from Loop a ball of that yarn I mentioned, was it called Jupiter Moon? and will try it for a pocket square.

AND I heard from Parcelforce about the package of madelinetosh Whisky Barrel. I paid the charge, and it is scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday, far sooner than I would have thought possible. It might be mildly amusing to add up the figures – the off-the-shelf cost per skein at Webs, plus the shipping cost and the VAT and the fee to the post office divided by eight – there are eight skeins – and see how the answer compares with the off-the-shelf price at Loop. But I probably won't do it.

My husband says, of agonizing over whether to buy a picture, that once you have done it, and hung it on the wall, you soon forget what you paid for it.

The Loch Fyne Mileses seemed in good form when they called in before the match. They brought us some duck eggs. They and Rachel and James have made far more serious plans than I had realised for looking after my husband while I am in Athens during Holy Week. I feel much happier about bounding off, although it remains to persuade him. I am sure it will be good for him to escape my constant company.

Zite came up this morning with this: 20 Knitting Fails Worse than that Itchy Sweater. (I'm having trouble with the link. If it doesn't work, google “MashableUK knitting”. ) I'm inclined to disagree – nothing is worse than an itchy sweater. But if you do take the trouble to look, be sure to click through on “15 Great Achievements in Knitting”.

Non-knit

We're promised an eclipse of the sun this month. We've had one since we moved to Edinburgh – I thought it was to be the last here for a century or so. That time, we put a black pail full of water on the doorstep and took a very hasty and very cautious look at the sun's reflection. About a third of the disc was gone. (The eclipse was total on the south coast of England, I think.) Darkness advanced to the point where the birds in Drummond Place Garden were getting agitated. It's a treasured memory.

This time, we're getting 90%. It'll be total in the Faroes. So it shouldn't matter at all if the day is cloudy.  

Today's excitement is very pleasant and thoroughly unstressful – Alexander and Ketki and their Little Boys plan to look in before the rugby. Murrayfield is on the western edge of the city (and they come from the west), so it's a considerable extra loop for them on a busy and exciting day, to come on into the city centre.

Scotland ought to win. Everybody beats Italy. But we've lost the services of several good men to injury and misbehaviour, and Italy aren't as dire as they used to be, so it could be interesting. It could even end badly.

England will play Ireland in Dublin this weekend – that should certainly be a good one. Both teams are unbeaten so far. I just heard two mighty ex-players, one from each, talking about he tournament on the radio. Both have still to play Scotland, in the two weekends remaining. The Englishman simply assumed that England will win the Calcutta Cup. The Irishman referred to Scotland as “resurgent” and thought it might be a tough game. I don't think I need to tell you who I'll be cheering for in Dublin.

Knitting

As hoped, I finished Archie's second sleeve, including the hemming of it, and went on to get the body stitches started again. That wasn't quite as straightforward as hoped. I had put them on two extra-long dp's for the most recent try-on and one had pulled partly out, resulting in a lot of picking-up and a fair amount of repairing ladders. All is well – the stitch-count right and the fabric smooth. Madelinetosh is good that way.

Reading ahead, I thought I had a problem I needed to consult you about. At the very end (except for sewing on buttons – ugh! – and blocking) one is to knit a little edging at the neck. There is a ribbed placket for the buttons, the two strips of which of course overlap – so the neck edging is knit back and forth. The instruction is “With RS facing...beginning at centre neck edge, working along neck shaping, pick up and knit...”

Reading that last night – indeed, reading it now – I took “centre neck edge” to mean the middle of the back. Quod absurdum est, when you think it through. The pick-up has to begin just inside the ribbing of the placket on the wearer's right-hand side. That point can be considered as the (front) centre of the neck edge, if you imagine the neck edge as an oval and ignore the placket.

Or are you meant to include the top of the placket in the edging? Sitting here typing away, I now think that must be what's meant. It could have been better expressed.

I had imagined doing the whole edging in the red of the inside hems, but I now see that the edging, too, although narrow, is folded and hemmed, so I'll keep red for the inside. It'll be visible enough when the placket is worn open as, surely, will often be the case.

Greek Helen will be here at the end of next week – I wondered for a while if I could have it finished in time to give to Archie then. He will surely come here, or she will go there. But I don't think it's possible – it'll need a day or more to dry after blocking, apart from anything else. Before then, some knitting time will have to be devoted to winding a final skein. But we might manage a final try-on.

New knit-related topic

My new iPad doesn't segregate mail the way the laptop does, and the old iPad did. At first I thought this was a nuisance, but now I think it's a good idea to have the briefest of looks at the ads as I delete them. (Somebody is pestering me to let them preserve my on-line identity from identity thieves. They seem to think I am Jean Miles of Old Saybrook, CT, so I am not too worried.)

In this way I discovered that Loop has a DK called Juniper Moon, a silk and merino blend in rich, deep colours including what looks like a navy blue. I think I might order a ball, with pocket squares in mind.

Today is Alexander's 55^th birthday. No wonder my husband and I are coming apart at the seams.

Dr Who

Tom Baker, of course – the Dr Who with the scarf. Thank you, Liz. And thank you, Jean, for the anecdote about him in the bookstore. I knit one of those scarves once, too – can't find the pic, alas. Very soothing knitting, very comfortable garment.

The Peter Davison role I remember fondly was not Dr Who or All Creatures Great and Small, but A Very Peculiar Practise, about a university student health clinic. There were four doctors: Davison, representing sanity; a fierce, rather butch woman; a self-absorbed and self-important bore; and a drunken Scotsman who might well have been played by the man who plays the undertaker in Dad's Army, but wasn't. It was filmed at Keele, I believe, and was extremely funny.

I've just been Googling it. I see there's a DVD available. I'm tempted.

Knitting

I've finished Archie's second sleeve, all but a few minutes and then the actual hemming. I'm about half-way through the red inner hem. I should be back at work on the lower body this very day.

And I've suddenly run dry. A computer man is coming soon who will try to help my husband through Microsoft Word to sanity. For now, he's just coming to suss things out. So I'd better sign off here.

Jennifer, thanks for the link to your Relax, knit in madelinetosh Whiskey Barrel. It looks as if it's going to be exactly the colour I want. It's a nice Relax, too – link in yesterday's comments.

Eddie Redmayne is all over Zite this morning. The actor I was trying to think of yesterday who went on from Fair Isle vests to Dr Who, is Peter Davison. I haven't looked up the one in VK who never went on to anything that I ever heard of. I think his surname might have been Budd. I do agree that Rowan maintains a particularly high standard in male models.

As it happens, someone turned up in Zite this morning who has knit all the Dr Who's plus a Tardis and some daleks. Alas, the only one I can recognise for sure is what's-his-name in that scarf. Not Peter Davison nor Peter Capaldi nor even David Tennant.

I enjoyed my extra day yesterday, and in the evening finished the decreases in Archie's second sleeve and am now speeding towards the finish. And it is indeed going faster now that I am using fewer needles and not thinking/fussing about the next decrease. Might even finish the sleeve tonight. And I am enjoying the endgame all the more for thinking about that whole new whiskey-barrel-coloured madelinetosh project winging its way towards me.

The blocking of the Unst Bridal Shawl now has to be firmly pencilled in. It's not exactly knitting – it requires to be done earlier in the day. Maybe one day when our dear Polish cleaning woman is here and I am hanging about feeling de trop.

I also learned this morning that Nancy Bush has done a Craftsy Class on Estonian lace. That's rather tempting – maybe I could even learn to love nupps. And now that our friend has fixed the router, I could sit there peacefully in the sitting room watching it on the new iPad. I think I've got a couple of un-viewed Craftsy classes stashed, too. I haven't been there for quite a while.

Judith, thank you for the link to those pocket squares (comments, yesterday). They're beautiful, all right. Not knitting patterns, cloth squares. For a moment I thought, I can buy them these if I don't finish knitting the squares. I'll go for a set of the silk Paisley ones, I thought. Then I saw the prices.

Non-knit

The neighbour's production company came around yesterday with a belated contract for me to sign (for being photographed sitting in the sitting room looking pensive). It has filled me with terror at the thought that Age Concern Scotland might want to use it on television, what with Easter coming and all. They wouldn't show it in England so James and Rachel are safe. And Alexander doesn't have television on the shores of Loch Fyne. And Athens is far away. But oh, dear.

Here I am!

I phoned the hospital, and this time spoke to a man, the sex I think I prefer to deal with in such a situation. I did explain, I'm afraid. He was most helpful and sympathetic, but soon established that the dr in question didn't have any appts ever after 10 a.m. Golf? Surely not. We had been referred to him specifically by the rheumatologist we usually see and whom we like a lot.

So the man at the hospital went off to email the dr and a couple of hours later someone phoned back with a perfectly suitable appt time in April. My husband has been living with this long enough that he can wait a little longer. He's perfectly cheerful about it.

So that was great. I feel as if I have been given a whole extra day of life (today). I think I'll go to Waitrose.

Filming was interesting. I just had to sit there, occasionally turning my head or wringing my hands. There was a directress and two photographers and sometimes the neighbour whose operation it is and who had asked me to do it in the first place. I am promised a copy of the finished thing, a promotional video for Age Concern Scotland. I will try to figure out somewhere I can park it in the cloud so that anyone who wants can see it. It is going to be exquisitely embarrassing.

It took a couple of hours and all I had to do was sit there. The experience left me in a whole new dimension of tired.

My husband is unhappy about accepting a performance fee for helping out a neighbour, and I can sympathize. But I feel the sitting room has earned its location fee.

As for knitting, there are only two more decreases to do on Archie's second sleeve. Then I'll switch to four needles (from five) and whiz on down to the wrist.

I allowed myself a browse amongst the madelinetosh dk's at Webs. The abundance was deliciously overwhelming. I have ordered eight skeins of Whisky Barrel, grey shot with dark brown I hope – it's hard to tell on a computer screen. It looks browner on the iPad than on the laptop, and browner is what I want. Anything by madelinetosh is going to look pretty good. This for the Sous Sous, of course.

I learn from Zite that Eddie Redmayne, who just won the Best Actor Oscar, once modelled for Rowan. The article says that the same is true of Kate Moss. I have a leaflet in my archives somewhere, Patons perhaps, showing a man who went on to be Dr Who among other things. His name escapes me at the moment. And I can remember a spread in a very late old-school VKB with an actor, name also forgotten, of whom nothing was ever heard subsequently. Knitwear modelling is clearly a useful money-spinner for a hungry young man (and Kate Moss).

My husband is developing very cold feet about the prospect of going to London for a week while I go to Athens at the end of March. Fortunately Greek Helen will be here for a couple of days quite soon, and can take the matter in hand.  

Here's where the horrors begin – Tuesday.

I saw the film people yesterday. They wanted to import an old boy called Harry and film him in our kitchen in the afternoon. I said no: my husband spends much of the morning having breakfast in there, and a good part of the early afternoon having lunch. I don't know why Harry can't be done in his own place, like me, but in any case I have refused to have him.

We are said to be getting a huge fee for this -- one for appearing,another for providing a location. My husband can have his iPad Mini and I the Tokyo shawl. I just want it to be over.

That leaves the hospital appt to worry about. An energetic friend came around yesterday determined to straighten out our wi-fi extender. The iPad could see it, but couldn't use it. It kept saying that I was entering the wrong password, which proved to be a lie, or at least a false hare. She dealt with that, fairly briskly, so now we have wi-fi over a substantially larger fraction of the house.

The iPad froze again this morning, while I was looking at my mail. I rebooted without difficulty – but I feel it shouldn't keep doing this. The lost one never did, in 2 ½ years.

She offered to phone the hospital and deal with them and I sort of wish I had let her. I'll have to ring them back this morning in the intervals from my film duties. The appt is for 9:45  tomorrow and the hospital is not more than 15 minutes drive away. My anxiety will sound absurd to them, and to you. My husband has never been any good at getting started in the morning. His career as a university teacher was kind to him in that respect. He is now very old, very slow, and, of course, diabetic. He can't just skip the morning insulin routine, and having done that, he can't skip eating.

I'll have to tell them this, and perhaps plead my own misery as well

But I had a nice time thinking about Sous Sous. Sizing is difficult to judge, as the pattern implies. It comes in three sizes and I have chosen the middle one – but will order an extra skein, giving me enough yarn for the largest. Loop is out-of-stock for a lot of the delicious shades they list, and have only one or two skeins of a lot of others, but they still seem better stocked than other UK suppliers, and I think I have chosen my shade. It's called Thyme.

But maybe I'll have a wee look at the American suppliers before I take the plunge.

Archie's sleeve continues well. Two more sessions – maybe one – should finish off the decreases.

And Lent is moving along all right, too. Quite apart from the increase in holiness, I feel somewhat more sprightly, and I lose weight, in a teetotal regime. Last year, at an equivalent stage, I was a whole five pounds lighter than I am now: a great incentive to press forward with determination.

If we go to the hospital tomorrow, I won't try to blog. But maybe we won't.

All well, with relatively little to report.

A busy week dawns, pleasantly so except for Wednesday. My husband has an early hospital appt that day. Earlier in his life it would only have been uncomfortably early; now, I fear it is impossibly so. I phoned the hospital last week, but it couldn't be changed. Apart from the very considerable stress of getting there, it is a long appt and we have been having trouble lately with low blood sugar at mid-day. I'll have him inject less insulin that morning, of course, but even so it will be an added anxiety.

He didn't feel very well yesterday – nothing specific, no fever, not much loss of appetite, just sort of limp. If that persists this morning, maybe I'll cancel the appt. It is to inject cortisone into his rheumatic right hand in the somewhat remote hopes of making it more comfortable and usable. Maybe we could even see the dr privately at a more convenient hour.

Apart from that major anxiety, the week's events are pleasant enough. Tomorrow the photographers are coming to make that video of me for Age Concern. I must tidy the sitting room and plan my costume.

Here are some pics. The Strathardle Inn posted these on Facebook, a day or two ago, of a fine sunset in the glen:

My husband planted that clump of trees with the crenelated top, in the upper picture. They are marked on the latest Ordinance Survey map. There's glory for you. I can't quite orientate myself on the lower picture.

My sister and her husband have been in DC, enjoying their grandson and sussing out retirement communities, among other things. Goodness, how Ted has grown since I saw him on November 1, Thomas' and Lucy's wedding day! And notice that my sister seems to be able to wear an open, unfastened cardigan without it slipping off her shoulders:

But we're here for the knitting.

Archie's sleeve continues well. I counted stitches again last night and it seems to be as it should be: number-of-stitches-on-the-needles minus number-still-to-be-decreased-according-to-Sirka equals number-I'm meant-to-have-at-the-end. Remarkable. I'll still check the length carefully against the other sleeve when the decreases are finished. Another four inches should remain to be knitted straight, at that point.

I printed the Sous Sous pattern successfully, rather to my own surprise, and have been contemplating it. I'll try to have a look at the knitalong on Ravelry today.

...I just did, without finding much that helped. I did find, looking through the Projects pages on Ravelry, that the design looks pretty good on all shapes and sizes. That's a big plus. And I was surprised to note that it scores slightly below 50% on the Difficulty bar. That's a plus, too. I do love cables, and haven't done any for a while.

 All is well.

The iPad just needed to be rebooted, as several suspected. Including me. To reboot, you need to press the on/off button. I have never turned an iPad off in my life, but the page about rebooting on the Apple website shows it, on the right-hand edge near the top. “iPad: the Missing Manual” confirms this position. On mine, it's on the top, near the right-hand edge. So I was pressing the wrong thing.

“Switching to the Mac” says “Apple is always consistent with its placing of the power button: it's different on every model.”

The nice young man in Lewis's rebooted for me and showed me a couple of tricks and downloaded a basic manual although that won't be much use if I can't get into the machine. He didn't even ask to see the receipt.

“iPad: the Missing Manual” turned up in the post yesterday and I'm leaning a lot. It says that this machine can take dictation. I will certainly have a go at that today.

Knitting

I'm whizzing down Archie's second sleeve. It occurred to me yesterday that I can probably finish the whole thing without stress in time to take it to Athens at the end of next month. If small adjustments turn out to be necessary, they can be effected. later The last try-on showed that we want a bit of ease in the torso, nothing that blocking can't achieve on so large a garment. But I think, when I finish the sleeve, I will add an inch or even an inch and a half on the bottom to accommodate it.

The final finishing detail, after the flaps at the bottom are hemmed, is an edging of a couple of rows around the neck and down and up the plackets. I mean to do that in red, like the insides of the hems, and Archie may be horrified. If so, I'll take it out.

And then, of course, buttons. They'll be a sober grey.

One of you most kindly gave me the Sous Sous pattern – the one Norah Gaughan did for Loop. This happened just before disaster struck in the form of the disappearance of the old iPad and I have been too agitated and distressed to think about it since.

But yesterday I finally downloaded it, and will try to print today and begin to contemplate size. It has lots of positive ease – I like positive ease – and a rather alarming note at the beginning about judging size from the upper arm measurement. Once that is done, I can move on to the delicious task of choosing a colour. This is madelinetosh DK again. Apart from its own beauty, it's one of the rare yarns that make my knitting look good.

And, speaking of cups running over, one of you has been in touch with the Pakokku people and has been assured that they will be bringing “Vampires of Venice” to Maryland Sheep & Wool in May – where my cyber friend will get some for me.

Alexander made a brilliant Found Poem oflines from this blog for my 80^th birthday in 2013, and had it printed on tea towels. We framed one and it hangs on the wall. One of the lines is: '”Vampires of Venice” alas is gone.' Wonderful, after all this time, to be proved wrong.

I copied out the whole poem here. It'll be in late August, 2013, the first blog post after the birthday gap in mid-month. It's brilliant – I've already said that.

I will be brief.

The iPad died on me yesterday. I opened it and found the screen totally unresponsive – no fingerprint, wouldn't let me type in the code, couldn't press Cancel. Nada. I left it for awhile to think about things, and when I looked again the screen was blank. Blackness.

I charged it (and it made that sweet little responsive noise when I plugged it in), although I think the battery was about 30% full. I looked up Apple's help pages and tried to follow the instructions for Restarting and then for Rebooting, to no avail. So I'm going up to John Lewis now before the Saturday crowds get there and while I still have some puff.

I finished the Pakokku sock! The first one was un-Kitchenered, so I also did that. It will take only a few moments to polish off the second today. First FO of 2015, I think. So now all I have to do is wind the next skein, cast on, and knit a round or two – and I'm ready to go to Athens. As I remember – but it's been a long time – Pakokku won't perform on 56 stitches, the number I use for my daintier-footed recipients. Maybe I'll try again, just to see.

I did a bit of Googling yesterday – the yarn doesn't seem very widely available. Even the Loopy Ewe doesn't have any, and people with stashes on Ravelry, for the most part, aren't selling. It does seem to come directly from the makers. Maybe I'll get a couple more. But there is still no sign of Vampires of Venice (a colourway), and the shades available at the moment are too blue for my liking.

They seem to make another sock yarn called Meridian, too.

I was rather struck, in the same Googling session, with the Pigeonroof sets of little skeins of yarn in graduated shades of one colour. Loop has them. But what to do with them? I'm not as clever as the Socklady, and I don't want ends to deal with. Sock-knitting is for repose of mind.

KayT, many thanks for the thumbs down on Rowan Fine Art. I think I'l start a new collection today for the charity knitters in Strathardle – that skein can be the first one in.

I had another nice day with my new iPad. The more I hold it in my hands, the odder it seems that I could have put the old one down somewhere so unfindable. It has to be me – my husband wouldn't have moved it. Could there have been a thief after all? But how? Someone would have had to get in the front door and go straight through this messy house to that precious object and out again without disturbing anything else.

I made a note on it about something yesterday, and was astonished to find all my old notes just as I had left them. I have a vague idea as to how that might have happened – indeed, I think the nice man in John Lewis said that it would – but it seems like black magic, pure and simple. It means that Steve Jobs, up there in heaven, knows exactly where my old iPad is.

I've ordered not ...for Dummies but The Missing Manual. Not that I'm having any difficulty, but I feel I am underusing the capacities of this truly astonishing machine. Even my husband is beginning to think he might like an iPad Mini.

Carolina22, thanks for the info on how to recover my Kindle books. I was halfway through A Passage to India, and also had just discovered Anne Tyler.  

Well, the big news is, I got my iPadAir2. Goodness, it's wonderful. I should be doing more adventurous things with it – watching movies, or making them. Would iPad for Dummies help?

Even with the Post Office gone, and staying out of Poundland, I had a lot of errands to do up the hill yesterday. John Lewis was part of the circuit, and there were the iPads, and I trust their service, so I just bought it there. The man at the till offered to set it up for me for £20 – there were notices up about that option– but I declined so he offered to set it up for me for free. I am pleased to say that I didn't disgrace myself by forgetting my identity or either of the necessary passwords.

The set-up included registering it so it ought to be findable now with the Find-My-iPad app.

So I still haven't seen the Apple Shop.

I've reinstalled Zite, after a bit of password fuss, and it remembers my “magazine”. I've got Kindle-for-iPad, too. The cloud is full of my old books, sure enough, but I think the ones I had on the Device aren't there any more, understandably. I bought a book, just to see whether Amazon would deliver it to the missing iPad, but no, Amazon has automatically named the new one “Jean's 2^nd iPad” and the book came there.

(It is “This House of Grief”, a real-life account of an Australian murder trial, very well reviewed lately and with lots of stars on Amazon. It starts with a disconcerting jauntiness but may settle down.)

As for knitting, I went on with the sock. There are about 20 rounds to go before the toe shaping.

I was right – I have two more skeins of Pakokku “Into the Whirled”, Brandywine and Gwydir. And also a skein of Rowan Fine Art. I thought that one was all natural, and therefore perhaps not tough enough for socks, but it has 25% polyamide like everybody else, and should do fine. On the other hand, is it sightly finer than other sock yarns?

I now need to put my husband's socks and shoes on for him which has given me a new and interesting viewpoint on socks. I remember trying some variations of fit for him, but my notes, alas! don't make it clear which variation applies to which pair of socks. Some are distinctly better than others.

I like the way the Oliver shaping fits, although I now can't remember how it's done. It should be easy enough to recover. For at least one pair, I used 72 stitches insead of 64 for the leg, and then narrowed down for the foot in the course of the gusset shaping. I think that's too floppy. Perhaps I could try counting stitches the next time he's wearing a sock that really seems to fit smartly.

Non-knit, weather

I'm sorry to hear America is still having so much winter – my sister says the same of CT.

Groundhog Day used to puzzle me as a child. Of course there are six more weeks of winter on February 2. I have since learned that it originates as a belief in the north of England, rather like the one about St Swithin's day later on in the year, no mention of groundhogs but the same idea – a dull day means spring, a bright one, more winter. It makes much more sense, here. Either might happen.

February 2^nd is the Feast of the Purification. The groundhog effectively removes any religious connotation which might offend American sensibilities.

That was Shrove Tuesday. Here's Ash Wednesday.

Archie has a school friend with him in Athens for the half-term week. They are doing a certain amount of sight-seeing. Here is a picture of Archie, looking rather embarrassed, with the Kouros of Sounion. You will remember that Professor A.R. Burn of Glasgow found an 8” piece of his – the Kouros' – hair but didn't know what he had until a classmate of mine told him. Greek Helen says that the broken bit of hair is just above the left shoulder, which sounds about right.

And here are some Greek cats on the Acropolis. They must be the greatgreat...greatgreat grandchildren of the cats I met there sixty years ago.

Podiatry went well yesterday. (=We got there, I found a place to park, we got back.) I didn't get much sock knitting done because I had to spend most of the time untangling, so I went on with it in the evening and am whizzing down the foot. A couple more sessions should finish off this pair. And, indeed, if I am to go to Athens at Easter, as is the plan, I will need a fresh pair of socks to knit.

Arne and Carlos? No – I've got plenty of good unknit socks in stash, including at least one more Pakokku skein.

Alexander and his family are coming over to Murrayfield to see Scotland v. Italy on the 28^th. Rachel seems to be afraid that the Curse of the Little Boys will strike again – they have never seen Scotland win. I am more confident. As you say, Knitlass, we are playing well. Our new coach is working wonders. I am more afraid that we will win the Calcutta Cup at Twickenham on March 14 and involve me in yet more knitting.

There should be some prescription pills to pick up at Boots (I email the dr, he sends the prescription there by post) and if so I may well go to the new Apple shop on Princes Street this morning and get a new iPad. That would be exciting. Picking-up-pills-at-Boots is about the farthest I get into the real world these days, unless you count Waitrose and hospital appts.

I find that I continue to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously – I think my dear iPad is gone; I don't think we have had a thief in the house.

It is worth mentioning again that the Polish cleaning woman is blameless – I had it when she was here on Tuesday, now a fortnight ago. I had it on Wednesday and Thursday and (I think) Friday morning. She has never had a key to the house. She remembers it – I showed her some wedding pictures on it, and she also remembers it lying in the place where it belongs. She had a good look the last time she was here, to no avail. She didn't come this week, being on holiday in Poland with her family.

Rugby

Knitlass, at least, will have spotted yesterday that I wasn't paying all that much attention to the rugby. Wales scored what seemed to be – what proved to be – the winning try just as our friend, arriving for tea, rang the doorbell. We kept the television on, with the sound down, but I entirely missed Scotland's try in the last moments, its conversion, and the question of whether there was time to restart for one more play. There seemed to be time, but the referee said no and blew the whistle. Scotland lost by three points.

Not only that, but yesterday's newspapers said that one or perhaps even two Scottish tries were disallowed although the evidence seems to be that they were good.

We wuz robbed, in fact.

These things happen. Rob Wainwright wrote in the Financial Times once about a famous Calcutta Cup match in which a penalty was awarded to England in front of the Scottish goal right at the end for “hand on the ball in the ruck” (or something like that – I don't really understand rugby) and England kicked it and won the match and poor Gavin Hastings was reduced to tears and couldn't face the press afterwards. There was a hand on the ball, Wainwright said, and he should know as he had been in that ruck. It was an English hand. Rob Andrews' hand.

I reported this to Alexander who took it calmly. These things happen.

Knitting

Kate Davies published an on-line interview with Gudrun Johnston recently. She used so pale a typeface that I read it with difficulty but was interested in Johnston's book “Shetland Trader Book 2”. I wasn't entirely clear as to whether it is a book of knitting patterns, or of bespoke clothes that you could order. It turns out to be the former and I want it, if only for the photography. They stayed at Burrastow when they were there for the shoot – that's where we stayed!

But pop-up ads and mis-clicks have defeated me this morning.

Elizabeth, no, I didn't know that Arne and Carlos had signed up with Regia for a line of designer sock yarn – that's exciting news.

It set me to thinking about how little knitting I seem to get done these days. With Archie's sweater, it's a bit like Penelope and her loom. I suspect myself of dragging my feet because I don't want to finish. But overall, I begin to think I am slowing down. Maybe it's just winter. My husband has a podiatry appt today which should advance those poor Pakokku socks a bit.

Non-knit

The pho was good, although the final dish was something of a disappointment. The broth is delicious, although not as complex as I would have expected. There's lots of it – I think I should have reduced it while all the stuff was still in it, before straining. And there's also lots of splendid poached chicken left. The recipe is in the current issue of Delicious magazine – does anybody else want to try? It's not difficult. It's not even time-consuming except in the sense of taking three days

Wales won. It was a good match, close until the very end, played in broad daylight in fine spring sunshine. Rugby like everything else – baseball being the saddest – is becoming a game of the night.

An old friend came to tea yesterday, filling the hours at the end of Sunday afternoon when I had hoped to get back to the pho. How does anybody ever do anything? Most people have lots more friends than we do.

It was grand to see her, and there's still time to have the pho for lunch, if I get cracking. Next I must dismember the chicken, shred the meat, cut up the bones and put them back in the broth for further stewing. And after that, add some other ingredients – ginger, shallots, spices which themselves have to be cooked in one way or another before being added. Finally noodles.

Virtually no knitting yesterday – a couple of rounds of Archie's sleeve. Today's job is to send the satisfactory-looking Cotton Glace square to London for comment.

Thank you for your help with the iPad. My brief acquaintance with the Apple website had led me to believe that the choice was between an iPadAir and an iPad Mini – you make it sound as if older, cheaper, kludgier versions, more like the Dear Departed, might still be available. But maybe by now I want an iPad Air. I don't think the Mini is of interest to me. I can see how it would be, if I were still at work.

CKP, Tile sounds like a very good idea – but I doubt if my absolutely basic mobile phone can run an app. Will I one day capitulate and get an iPhone? I am deterred by the idea of an ongoing monthly charge. I will certainly ensure at once that any new iPad knows about the MacBook, and vice versa, so that I can use the Find My iPad app. And it's very good news that my Kindle library is waiting for me in the sky.

I finished the Pocket Square, due in part to watching the rugby. Ireland beat France; it was a rather good match, especially at the end. Today Wales play Scotland here in Edinburgh. That could be good, too. Both were beaten last weekend, and both are cross about it.

I even dropped a stitch, and laddered it back up over three bars, without leaving behind a Messy Patch. This yarn (Rowan Cotton Glace) really is magic for garter stitch. Now I'll send the square to London and we can discuss requirements – size, colour, texture, laciness – with something concrete in front of us.

My friend came yesterday to look for the iPad but soon gave up in the face of endemic disorder. If it's here, it's somewhere I put it. But where? I am pretty far down the road towards buying a new one. It's going to be pricier than I expected but I can't go on like this. I think what I miss most is the Kindle app: I wonder if a new iPad will have access to my library of ebooks in the cloud? I miss lots of other things, too – my lists; looking up recipes; Zite. But I really don't want to go back to cluttering up the place further with paperback-buying. And I am afraid I like abandoning a book if I'm not enjoying it,  and not having it lie there accusing me.

Thank you for your comments yesterday, which helped clear my mind. I do want fingerprint recognition – my friend who came yesterday has that. I had not previously known about it. Wow! [Ridiculous, in my case.] And I don't need fancy connectivity, just plain vanilla wi-fi.

The non-knit, non-iPad topic I keep meaning to mention is the brilliant exhibition currently on at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. They have had one of their masterpieces copied from a digital image by a Chinese consortium which goes in for that sort of thing, and they have hung it in place of the original. The exhibition is called Made in China, and your job is to spot the fake.

The whole thing, including shipping, cost them less than £200 – less than my new iPad – and will bring in hundreds of viewers, I am sure. They will have to go about the Gallery looking hard at the pictures – no use reading the labels. I hope no smart-ass newspaper columnist spoils the fun. I wish we could get there – we always used to enjoy Dulwich, and I am sure my husband could spot the fake without difficulty. Alas, he doesn't think he could totter about even if driven to the door. We really must investigate wheelchairs.

The other thing to look at if you go there, is their metasequoia glyptostroboides, not far from the front door – one of the first in Britain. It is one of those familiar stories; I'm sure I have told it here before. It was a Japanese scientist I think who identified it from a fossil during the late war and gave it that less than snappy name. After the war when academic papers again circulated freely the Chinese said, oh, yes, we've got that, down by the river.

It's also called Dawn Redwood. It's a deciduous conifer. We planted one to mark James' and Cathy's wedding. Ours has struggled, because we planted it on a slight slope and the soil is very light and it really prefers to have its feet wet. A few yards nearer the burn and it would have been fine. But it's hanging in there. Whereas the Dulwich one, put in not long after the war, is splendid.

Happy Valentine's Day all round!

My remarkable facility with garter stitch continues. I turned the square around on 62 stitches, and so far the declining edges look as neat and satisfactory as the ascending ones. It should be ready for dispatch to London by Monday. This is the Rowan Cotton Glace version of the Pocket Square, mentioned yesterday.

The new IK shows several buttonless cardigans, hanging free with 4”-6” of wearer visible between the edges. They look very neat and comfortable – but does it work? Or does such a garment slip off the wearer's stooped and care-worn shoulders?

And that's about it, for knitting. In the absence of Zite – gone with the iPad – I've been catching up on long-unread blogs. Both the Harlot and Annie Modesitt seem to be in good nick. Best of all, the Socklady, miles from anywhere, moose in the yard and wolves howling at night, no salad for weeks when she is snowed or iced in as at present, living alone and knitting those amazing socks. Sometimes the links in my sidebar don't seem to work so I've put one in the text.

Someone needs to explain to me what “negative interest” is.

I am making a Vietnamese pho chicken soup from a recipe in one of my magazines. Yesterday I poached a whole small organic chicken for ten minutes and then left the pot in the spare room for the rest of the day to cool. Today I am bringing it back to the boil – lovely crystal-clear broth, but the chicken is far from tender. Today it is to simmer for half an hour. Then it must cool again. It is only on the third session that one cuts up the chicken and adds flavouring and finally ingredients (noodles, bean sprouts). Good fun.

Another day. A dear friend – the one whose dog I hope to knit when life calms down – has offered to come and look for the missing iPad. I have to agree with her that either it is still here, or we have had a thief in the house. Not a pleasant thought, and I still believe it unlikely.

Knitting

Mary Lou has sent me a beautiful skein of Shibui linen in a good navy blue. I would have cast it on last night when I finished the silk square, but that as so often I was tired and chose the line of least resistance. I cast on the ball (already wound) of Rowan Cotton Glace which I bought that day when I also got the Rowan linen.

And I am full of enthusiasm. Cotton Glace makes my garter stitch look good – that's little short of a miracle. And the colour is right (I think). It would be a bit small if I made the square to the pattern, so I will enlarge to six or six and a half inches and send to London for comment.

I am using an utterly basic pattern which a cyber friend suggested – and which I had on the iPad last Thursday evening, the 5^th, when I embarked on this adventure. Cast on 4. Knit 2, YO, knit to end. Repeat that row until you have 44 stitches (or until you decide it's big enough). Then knit 1, k2tog, YO, k2tog, knit to end. Repeat that one until you are back down to four stitches. Cast off. It's a washcloth pattern, and a good one.

London may want something fancier. This will give us a basis for conversation. And who would have thought that I could knit garter stitch?

The new IK turned up yesterday. I don't think there's anything to push ahead of anything else in my HALFPINT queue, but I like the little faux-gansey on page 39, and was most interested in the article about Coopworth American gansey yarns.

I have knit with Frangipani (see p. 16) – a pink gansey for Ketki using Beth Brown-Reinsel and “Mrs Laidlaw's pattern” from Gladys Thompson's marvellous book. It appears to fit well. She (Ketki) wears it sometimes to rugby matches where I suspect it serves as excellent armour against the weather – just what a fisherman needs.

The whole issue left me feeling that spring is stirring, and a new year begins here.

Non-knit, and very local

For my two or three readers with access to Broughton Street: Mr. Bee, of “Something Fishy” at the top of the street, is soon to retire. We have been buying fish there for the 20 years we have lived in Edinburgh, because Mr. Bee, and his brother who kept the shop before him, can fillet a fish. In Birmingham where we used to live, we were constantly picking little bones out of our mouths and didn't attempt fish very often.

The good news is, there is to be a new Mr. Bee, nephew of the current incumbent, son of the previous one. He will be the 5^th generation of the family to be an Edinburgh fishmonger. He is tall and handsome. The down side is, he has no previous experience of fish-filleting. I told him yesterday that he was following not one but two grand masters.

“No pressure, then”, he said.