It’s been a blowy day, with fits of rain, and in Helen’s absence – she’s in Madrid – I made that an excuse for not walking. I’ll have to do better tomorrow.

 

The MKAL was slightly less prostrating today, and I made good progress:

 

(a slightly sharper picture than yesterday’s) Stephen warned us that it’s not a competition, but it’s hard not to look at it like that. I reached row 16 today, and found the ominous instruction: repeat rows 9-16 11 more times (nor is that quite the end). What you see is me about halfway through the first of those 11 repeats. I can’t possibly finish before next Thursday, when the second clue will appear. I’m worried because it’s hard. Not exactly difficult, but hard. I’m afraid that once I fall behind, it will be all too easy to give up altogether. Stephen promises that the next clue is easier – and the reward for perseverance, of course, will be a brand new Stephen West shawl, suitable for Christmas giving. I like my yarn, and the way the colours look together.

 

Wordle: I failed again today. My winning streak was only five days long – not enough to regret. Many of us seem to have found it tough. Theo, in another midnight performance, scored six. Alexander, Thomas, and Granddaughter-Rachel needed five. Ketki and Daughter-Rachel were today’s stars, with four. No news from Mark.

 

A bonny, breezy October day. Helen and I got around the garden.

 

I am pretty well prostrate after my day-long efforts with the MKAL. Here is a blurry picture of my achievements to date. 

I think the worst is over and that it’ll speed up somewhat. I was surprised to learn – I don’t think this is a spoiler; anyone who has bought the program has, by now, watched the Part One video – to learn that Part One yields a complete piece of cloth, bound off and Kitchiner’d. I certainly hope Part IV won’t require the knitting of a matching piece. But Stephen W. doesn’t go in for symmetry much – I’m probably safe.

 

Waking up this morning was like Christmases of yore. Not the ones that involved going into the freezing kitchen before dawn to put the turkey in the oven, but the ones before that when one longed to be allowed to start on the presents.

 

I did better than expected on Fergus’ sweater yesterday evening – I finished the second skein of yarn and wound the third and knit a bit with it.

 

Wordle: I think we’re all here today. Three was again a popular score: me, Mark, daughter-Rachel, Thomas, granddaughter-Rachel. Four for Ketki and Theo. Alexander beat us all with a two.

 

Pleasant weather, again; and Helen and I got all the way around the garden, again. She is going away on Friday, this time to Spain, theoretically for the last foreign jaunt of ’22, as yet another old friend turns 60.

 

I got on well with Fergus’ sweater. No disasters, today. I am within a round or two of finishing the second skein. I hope I’ll have the oomph to do it this evening, especially because the MKAL cast-on is scheduled for tomorrow and the sweater is sure to be set aside for a while. But I tend to be distinctly lacking in evening-oomph.

 

I am much struck with Brooklyn Tweed’s new pattern called Spalding (which I find an instantly forgettable name), a unisex half-brioche which looks enormously comfortable. I have a dying sweater in that stitch. I am not sure whether it has been eaten to death by moths or is it just that my seams have fallen apart? Or both. It’s in a Madeleine Tosh DK’ish yarn and is blissfully warm and comfortable. Just what we’re going to need this winter. I am all the more drawn to Spalding because BT offers both a worsted-spun and a woollen-spun yarn for it, and thanks to a spinning class I once did at the EYF – I was undoubtedly the class dunce that day – I have retained at least a vague knowledge of the meaning of those two terms.

 

Wordle: not everybody turned up today. Those of us who did mostly got three, except for Theo who scored four. He often posts at what must be midnight in DC.

 

 

It has been a dull, damp day. Helen and I got around the garden – that’s always good to report.

 

And I knit resolutely on. The trouble with a pattern like this, difficult to begin with, is that mistakes can creep in as one begins to relax. I’ve had to fix a couple today, I think successfully. I’m mildly concerned about whether the four cable panels pull in so much that there won’t be any positive ease after all. Meanwhile the MCAL starts day after tomorrow. The excitement mounts. On-line cast-on parties are available, but I think I’ll be happier going it alone.

 

Comment: KirstenM: thank you for the link yesterday to those interesting mosaics. I have forwarded it to Helen.

 

Wordle: the stars today were Alexander, Ketki, and Theo, with three. Thomas and Mark and DaughterRachel and I had four; Granddaughter Rachel limped home with six. So my fours total now exceeds the fives, by one!

 

It has been a quiet day, welcome after yesterday’s excitements. I had my weekly bath and haircut and so didn’t attempt a walk. Daughter Rachel phoned. She and Ed are coming to see me soon. She has a friend whose elderly mother – not as elderly as I am – recently fell in the shower and suffered a compound fracture of one or more of her leg bones. I am lucky to have Daniela. Getting in and out of the bath is not easy and demands the full attention of both of us.

 

Knitting has progressed well. Here is a rather off-centre pic. I’ll take another soon to provide a better view of a cable panel.

 

I have come away from yesterday’s injections with only the very slightest hint of an ache in one arm. Tamar, what I meant about post-Covid improvement in medical services is the way appointments are now kept on time. Previously there was at least a half-hour wait – family doctor or hospital consultant, it mattered not – in a waiting room with limp three-year-old magazines. Now the magazines have all been swept away, presumably because they Harboured Germs. And the appointment is kept on time, so you don’t have to sit there and wait anyway.

 

Current affairs: The King and Queen have been to Dunfirmline, which has recently been promoted to the status of a city. He was wearing an impressive pair of red kilt hose. I wonder who knits them for him?

 

I watched the Chancellor of the Exchequer making a speech to the Conservative Party Conference. He was impressive. I don’t see how he could have been reading from an auto-cue, although I know they can be completely invisible.

 

Wordle: We didn’t hear from everybody today. The Mileses were off-form: five for Ketki and Alexander, six for their son Thomas. Theo and Daughter-Rachel and I all scored four. My fours are now equal to my fives: 73 of each.

 It’s been a successful day. We got to the vaccination centre in good time, and, sure enough, it was fully in action at 8:45 on a Sunday morning. I was dealt with promptly – a minor but welcome spin-off from the pandemic in this country. I got both injections, and  have had no ill effects. Of late I have kept my tape measure and my needle gauge – two vital tools determined to escape, especially the latter – I have kept them tied to my walking frame. They turn out to serve as a first-rate conversation starter.

 

We went on to Waitrose which I half-expected to prove a cornucopia of delights hidden from the on-line-orderer, but it was not so.

 

The rest of the day has been somewhat subdued, although there has been plenty of knitting on Fergus’ sweater. I am anxious to put in as much mileage there as possible before the MCAL starts. Tamar, “rhubarb” is red in the Schehallion scheme of things. A subdued, darkish red, perhaps comparable to the stem colour of the mature plant. I.e., not the delicious pink of forced rhubarb in January. Fergus looks string-bean thin, but his chest measurement is just short of 40” and he wants a bit of positive ease, so it takes me quite a while to knit all the way around him.

 

On top of all this, Helen wants more length on the recently-completed Evendoon. I blocked it for extra width (which I have achieved) without worrying about length. I don’t quite see how it is to be fitted into the present scheme of things.

 

Wordle: I have partially redeemed yesterday’s failure by scoring a respectable four. My fours-total is now only one less than the fives. Thomas and both Rachels – daughter and granddaughter – also scored four; everybody else got three.

 

Again, the weather spat with rain this morning when Daniela was here inviting me to walk, so we didn't, and again it’s a lovely, sunny afternoon. Tomorrow promises excitement. I have an appt – hard to believe – at 8:44 for my annual flu injection and a Covid booster. Helen will take me. She’s an early riser.  I suspect that will be plenty of exercise for the day.

 

Knitting has progressed well. I’ve finished the Calcutta Cup. I’ll take a pic in a couple of days, when there’s a bit more background colour above it. The Cup which got mixed up with that tinking operation the other day, isn’t looking terribly smart. I may need to acquire the skill of duplicate stitch after all.

 

The big news is, however, is that I finished the first skein of rhubarb-coloured Schiehallion and embarked on the second. Except for “Lilias Day” I have been knitting stripes, or Fair Isle, or baby clothes, or all three all year long, and what those activities have in common is that one almost never finishes a ball of yarn. (And even "Lilias Day" had a lot of unfinished skeins in its yoke.)  And, here, this morning, a whole ball got used up! There’s one skein less is this yarn-crowded household!

 

Wordle: It beat me today, for the first time since COYLY in early August. It was a fair fight. The word seems to have caused a certain amount of difficulty all around. Most of us scored five. Alexander and Theo were the stars with three; Daughter Rachel needed four.

 

 

No walk. It was rainy and a bit wild this morning. Better now, but I’m really not fit for walking in the afternoon. And anyway, no one's here. I can't get myself and a walking machin down the steps without help.

 

The knitting has progressed well. Too well – my starter marker fell out and I was nearly a quarter of the way around repeating what I had just done,  before I noticed. Careful tinking and restoration and all is more or less well. It was easier to unkick and restore that cable panels than the Calcutta Cup ones. The westknit MKAL starts next week (Wed or Thur). Great excitement. I must get the Calcutta Cup band done before that happens. Should be easy, barring disaster.

 

I think you’re probably right about the meaning of “wool room”, Tamar (query and comment yesterday). An 18^th century house was a village in itself; it’s reasonable to suppose that they would have cleaned, spun and woven wool in-house. And that the family would have gone on referring to the “wool room” long after the actual space was used for storing canned beans.

 

Wordle: A remarkable uniformity today. Almost all of us (including me) scored three. The exceptions were the two most recent arrivals – Theo and Granddaughter Rachel. He nailed it in two, she needed four.

 

 

Today started grey and dark, but morphed into a beautiful September day, remarkably warm. Daniela and I got all the way around the garden. Despite that feat (or because of it) I had unusual difficulty getting up the six steps from the pavement to my door when we got back. I think my hip is getting slowly worse.

 

However, mercifully, that doesn’t affect knitting. Lying in bed this morning – a good time, I find, for applying the mind to life’s problems – I thought maybe intarsia was the answer. I have tried it – semi-intarsia, anyway: I continue to carry the main colour across the back of the Calcutta Cup motifs. And it’s working a treat. The cable patterns are vastly easier when I don’t have to worry about carrying the Calcutta Cup colour along. Your idea of duplicate stitch is excellent, Mary Lou, and, as I don’t think I’ve ever done it, it would have the advantage of adding a new craft to my repertoire. We’ll see how things go. There’s still quite a bit of the Calcutta Cup panel.

 

A priest came to see me yesterday, a new acquaintance. I have been drawn into a web of holiness lately. He comes from the Borders which is a hotbed of Scottish rugby and thus was able to talk about my knitting with enthusiasm and interest. “What did you do in 2019 when the result was a draw?” (Ans: knit half the cup into a scarf for Grandson Thomas Mile.)

 

I am intermittently reading Elizabeth Bowen’s “Bowen’s Court” about her family house in rural Ireland. “Intermittently” because I have temporarily abandoned it for the new Kate Atkinson, “Shrines of Gaiety”. What a strange and interesting writer she is! But my question today concerns Bowen. Describing the offices below-stairs she says, “Off the axis passage are the kitchen and larder, the wool room, the game room, the servants’ hall, the laundry, the wine and the coal cellars.” What is a wool room? Google is useless here.

 

Wordle: Almost everybody did it in four today, my favourite score. The exceptions were Thomas, three; and Rachel and Theo, five. My statistics today show 71 fours and 73 fives. I’m working at it!

 

 

 

I’m sorry for the gap. James’ and Cathy’s daughter Rachel was here for a visit, recovering from having completed her M.A. We had a nice time. She is of the generation that falls between stools – living at home rent-free in exchange for doing the family cooking (a good deal on both sides, I suspect), hoping for a job connected with Chinese art and meanwhile working in a London gallery. Her Chinese is fluent due to having grown up in Beijing.

 

I have embarked on the business end of Fergus’ Calcutta Cup sweater, and am wondering if I have bitten off too much. I am locating the cup and the date in the st st panels between the cable panels, and it means tbat there is an awful lot going on at once, including carrying the Calcutta Cup yarn behind while cabling. The first round seemed to take hours. The cable panel starts with a symbol identified on the page as CRP (or something like that). The inside back cover identifies that as Cable Left Purl, and the instructions for actually doing a Cable Left Purl are on yet another page. I’m getting the hang of it, but it’s slow. The st st panels have involved a lot of counting and I will just have to hope that the Cup is more or less centred in each. I hope I’ll be strong enough to finish the second round before I go to bed.

 

Wordle: Mary Lou, I don’t have an Ask Word Bot button with my scores. Perhaps you subscribe to the NYT and that’s a subscribers’ bonus? I was the dunce today – six.  Rachel got two; Ketki and Alexander and Mark, three; four for Thomas and Theo.

 

Helen is safely home. She has been teaching mosaic-making on Mount Pelion, and will be teaching it again here in Edinburgh tomorrow and Tuesday. She popped in after getting the studio set up for action, looking – not unsurprisingly – rather drawn. I hope she’s tucked up in bed by now. Greece is two hours later than we are.

 

C. came this morning. We didn’t walk, due to my feebleness. I have been busy arranging various aspects of the last week of November, when my sister and her husband and a friend will be here. The friend has had to be lodged elsewhere, alas. We will all – including the friend’s temporary landlord – go out for a non-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving on the Thursday of that week.

 

I knit a bit. I am going to have to grit my teeth and face up to the fact that I can’t knit and read while there is so much attention to be paid.

 

Wordle: I scored my much-desired four. When C. was here this morning, she let slip the identity of the final letter and I ought to be embarrassed to say that I was delighted. I had it as a brown, and knew that it had to be in one of two positions. And furthermore, while we’re talking about indiscretions, here’s one for you: my third line was BATIK. It was a perfectly valid guess, although thoroughly wrong. I was proud of myself for knowing (vaguely) what it meant, and I hope the NYT was impressed. Four was today’s popular score: Ketki, Alexander, Rachel, Thomas. Theo needed six. Nothing from Mark. One of the great things about this little game is that almost everybody wins.

 It has been a glorious September day. C. came and we walked all the way around the garden, if only because it would have been a waste of the day’s glory to stop. The radio says this weather won’t last.

 

Helen will be home from Greece tomorrow, although she is teaching mosaic-making on Monday and Tuesday so I won’t see her for a while.

 

I knit solidly on with Fergus’ sweater, although I didn’t accomplish very much. There are two broad cabled bands up the sides of the front, over the shoulders, and on down the backs. Between them are the four panels – broad at the front and back, narrow under the arms – in which I plan to locate the Calcutta Cup and the date. I got as far as counting the stitches in each.

 

I had an exciting few moments this morning when Daniela rang up to say that she couldn’t come because her small son was ill, and a scammer was ringing at the same time to say that my email had been infiltrated, and both land line and telefonino were affected. One day one of those scams will be genuine and then I’ll feel foolish. Or perhaps not.

 

Wordle: today it was I who fell into the Wordle trap of guessing the first letter wrong.  I thought I was set for a three, and wound up with a miserable five after two wrong guesses. Three for Mark (today’s star), four for Thomas and Rachel, five (like me) for Alexander and Ketki, six for Theo.

 

A grey day. I didn’t go out. The big news is that VK came – how and why did I ever let it lapse? I’m glad to see that Meg is still there, and Norah Gaughan still at the helm.

 

I’ve started Fergus’ sweater. Progress is slow, so far. First of all, casting on 256 stitches involves a fair amount of counting. Next, it turns out that the ribbing is not entirely straightforward. There are occasional bands of four stitches amidst the k2, p2 ribbing. That requires very close attention and anxious counting. From there on, for a while, you just knit the knits and purl the purls. But even that requires fairly close attention, especially for the first round. All that is done, and the next round. I’m just making excuses for not having accomplished more.

 

Normally, when I knit a Calcutta Cup sweater – who would have thought I would ever write those words, in the desolate Noughties? – normally, I simply abandon the sweater pattern above the ribbing, and knit a Calcutta Cup band. This time, after today’s struggle, I think it might be better to fit the cup and the date neatly between the cable patterns which have been so elaborately prepared with those four-stitch bands. That would involve developing the cables as per the pattern, even while the cup and date are being inserted between. We’ll see – and indeed we’ll have to see fairly soon.

An example from long ago.

 Wordle: an honest word today. No complaints. But I didn’t do very well. TWO for Alexander; three for Rachel, Ketki, and Mark; four for Theo; five for me; six for Thomas, who got stuck without a first letter and guessed wrong twice. I used Jean-words in lines three and four and they eventually, as often, guided me to the answer.

 Fergus’ yarn is here, and of course the cider from Amazon. Whether one approves of Amazon or not, they do deliver. VK remains outstanding.

 

The yarn is beautiful. I finished the current random-Shetland stripe and laid it aside. I wound the first ball of Fergus’ yarn and got quite a long way with the cast on – 256 stitches needed – before Amazon rang the doorbell. Since then I’ve been sitting around happily, or napping, or suppering. I didn’t feel entirely well this morning, and it was raining. No walk.

 

Thank you very much for yesterday’s comment, Anonymous. I think I’ll probably buy KD’s new book. Having a pattern in a nice book is a different level of pleasure from having a pattern on-line even if one can persuade one’s printer to print it out.

 

Wordle: my two starter words gave me five browns this morning. Nothing to do but solve the anagram. Believe it or not, I thought of two separate solutions – but both were Jean-words, in that some of the browns remained in their original positions, which is not allowed. If that had been the right position, they would have been green. Then I thought of another possible solution to the anagram, everybody in different positions, and it was right. So I scored three.

 

Anonymous, your experience was very like Mark’s: he had the last four letters as greens, and guessed wrong twice. His final score was five. Rachel was also five, but she came at it with the first two letters green. Theo, likewise, scored five, but his missing letter was in the second position and he only guessed wrong once. Ketki and Thomas scored three like me, Alexander had four. I think that’s everybody.

 

Nothing arrived today – all the more anticipation for tomorrow. I did get an email from Amazon to confirm that cider and cat litter are on the way.

 

It was a glorious September day. Daniela and I got all the way around the garden – gratifying, after a series of non-walking days. And I knit a few more Shetland stripes. And re-located Kate Davies’ Argyle Coast book, in which Fergus’ pattern appears. That book tends to come and go, like a lot of things around here. It’s now in a secure place.

 

Her new book, Sark, is now available. It’s all about travelling stitches, which I adore. A wonderful sweater and cardigan (two separate patterns) are included, but it looks as if the rest of the book is accessories and Tom’s photography. That makes it expensive for the two patterns I’d quite like. On the other hand, the accessories (wrap, hat, cowl, slippers) are nice too in their way. I’ll think about it.

 

Wordle: I scored five again. I was the class dunce today. My starters gave me three browns. By means of heroic mental effort I entered a qualifying word in line three. It left me with the same three browns, although indeed with a bit more information. Heroic mental effort refused to yield another, so I gave up and entered a Jean-word in line four. It worked a treat; I now had four letters in position (three greens and a brown which couldn’t be where it was and so had to be in the empty position. Thomas scored two, Mark and Ketki three, Rachel and Theo and Alexander four.

 

Much anticipatory excitement: Kate Davies has shipped Fergus’ Calcutta Cup yarn. Unique Magazines has dispatched my newly-reconnected first issue of Designer Knitting (which =’s VK for some mysterious publishing reason). AND my monthly delivery of a week’s cider is due from Amazon on Thursday.

 

Today itself was pretty quiet. Daniela came back. The house really needed her after 48 hours away. (Normally she comes for two hour six days a week. This time she had the normal Sunday off, followed by the royal funeral yesterday.) She administered my weekly bath. I didn’t attempt a walk, as hair was still damp.

 

I pressed on with Shetland stripes. I’ve done about nine inches, of a desired fifteen to the underarm. I’m knitting random stripes from yarn bought at Uradale Farm when I was on my Shetland Wool Adventure whenever that was. 2019, maybe. In the Dathan hap, which I’ve knit twice, both the colours and the width of the stipes are random, but that involves a surprising amount of nervous strain so here I’m making all the stripes three circuits wide. That leaves me only the random colours to worry about, which is bad enough.

 

Here is a picture from my happy visit to Roslyn last Saturday. Left to right: me, Manaba, one of the kittens, Manaba’s son Hamish, C. It’s a shame my walker occupies so much of the foreground. Imagine it absent.

 

Wordle: another five for me (blast!) again involving a wrong guess when I had four greens. Assuming there are only two possible words with that configuration, four others in my little group made the same mistake, with different results depending on how long it took them to reach the four greens. Theo was worst with six. Thomas (who now logs in from Birmingham University) shared my five. Rachel and Alexander got four, Ketki and Mark three.

 

 

 

I’m exhausted after watching only some of the royal funeral on television. What must it be like this evening for the actual royals? It was all awfully well choreographed. I think my only other comment would be that Carrie Johnson’s black dress revealed a little too much bosom for my taste.

 

Archie came to see me, and put the rubbish out for tomorrow: an important job done. He says that people his age are totally indifferent to the royal family.

 

I knit resolutely on during it all, but the random-stripe Shetland has rather fine yarn and lots of stitches, so I didn’t make all that much progress, measured in inches. Coofle would have been no better.

 

Comments yesterday: That’s a good idea, KirstenM, to have a box with notes for the people who will clear out your house when you are dead or otherwise incapacitated. They all know where to find my will, and that some of the books in the Glass Fronted Bookcase are valuable. More, however – those with titles like “Soccer for the American Boy” – are there only because written by a family member.

 

Wordle: When you click “Share” on the screen that comes up when you finish the game, and then paste the result somewhere as I do every day for my little group, the grid comes across headlined with its number – useful to ensure that you are all talking about the same thing – and your score in numbers. There are no letters in the grid, of course.

 

I scored a maddening five today. After my two starter words, I had four lovely greens, but I could think of three possible letters for that empty fifth slot, and I guessed wrong twice. Rachel had the same configuration, and failed altogether. Four for Alexander and Ketki, three for Thomas, a dazzling two for Mark. Theo in DC got five, like me. He has taken to posting a result at about the same time as we do, 8-9 a.m. British Summer Time, or a bit earlier. Is he staying up until the small hours? Or getting up unconscionably early?

 

Inspired by your comment, Tamar, I redoubled my search, and I have found the missing Knitter’s’s. I haven’t looked at the Adult Surprise in Issue 60 yet. I don’t need that, anyway, because I’ve got Cully’s book, The Complete Surprise. (It’s here somewhere, at any rate, if I could just put my hands on it.) Nancy Thomas was editor in those days. Knitter’s was never better. It’s sad to think that when my unfortunate children come to clear out this house, they’ll throw away valuable knitting magazines with abandon.

 

I have been all alone today, therefore no walk. I need someone to get my walking aid up and down the steps, before I can strike out on my own. Archie will come tomorrow, when the whole country shuts down for the royal funeral. I have given Daniella the day off; the least I could do. I enjoy my own company, and can still totter about the kitchen sufficiently to cook simple things. KirstenM (comment April 6) I made your Sausage Supper for my lunch today, and it was delicious. But it must be tough on old folks at my stage of feebleness who see no one at all from week’s end to week’s end.

 

I gather there is some feeling in the US, spearheaded by the NYT, that the Queen must be held responsible for all the evils of imperialism. Today’s news here, in the interstices of funeral news, is of serious riots in Leicester between Hindus and Muslims. The subcontinental communities are large and well-established there (we used to live in Leicester, before Birmingham), dating back to the days when citizens of the Commonwealth had free access. The trouble this time started with a cricket match some days ago between India and Pakistan. The Empire is certainly responsible for the world-wide dissemination of cricket.

 

I went on with the random-striped Shetland sweater, to celebrate finding those Knitter’s’s. I'm prepared to fling it aside again as soon as the yarn from Fergus' Calcutta Cup sweater turns up. And I’ve found the Coofle pattern in my Ravelry library.

 

Wordle: I am totally mystified by your comment yesterday, RedH, that you have different words. The time difference creates some confusion, since the new word comes up, I believe, at midnight Your Time which is not necessarily mine. Don’t the numbers keep it straight? We did 456 today, and it’s still current. My nephew Theo in DC has joined our little group, and he seems to have the same words as we do. There was a bit of discussion amongst us all about PARER the other day. That is interesting, Diasporette, about its being used for a pencil sharpener (comment yesterday).

 

We were strung out along the track today: Ketki 2, Rachel 3, me and Alexander 4, Thomas 5. Silence from Mark, which is very unusual. Theo also scored two.

 

C. and I met Kathy of Kathy’s Knits this morning as we were setting out on our adventure. She said she had had a tour group in yesterday (Friday the l6th) and that two of its members had asked after me – but she didn’t know who you were. So I want to know:

         a) Who were you?

         b) What was the nature of the tour?

         c) Did you go on to the Ginger Twist Studio, not far away? (Or had you just been there?)

 

Kathy’s speciality is British yarns. The excitement of Ginger Twist (a very small shop) is Ginger’s own yarn colours.

 

Then C. and I went to Roslyn where we had a wonderful time. Quinn is nearly four weeks old and a very bonny baby. His parents seem to be bearing up pretty well considering, and so is his brother Hamish. There are two kittens left, eight weeks old I think someone said, leaving for their new hones next week. They are bonny too.

 

Knitting: not much done. The main problem is finding patterns. At the worst, I could buy them again -- Coofle and Macchu Picchu are both missing. The severe-est loss, however, is four consecutive issues of Knitter’s Magazine containing Meg’s expansion and elucidation of the EPS. I’ve got the original EPS in one of her books somewhere. And I’ve got a page of my own notes and numbers (largely unintelligible) from a recent knitting of it. But where are those magazines?

 

Wordle: We’re all back in the saddle today. Three for me, Rachel, Alexander, and Mark. Four for Thomas. Two for Rachel.

 

Yesterday’s unsatisfactory word was PARER. If it means “paring knife”, that is the term which would be far more commonly used in this country. Not that American solvers seemed any happier with it than we over here were.

Life begins to reassume some of its normal dimensions, such as worrying about how much it is going to cost to keep warm in this rapidly-approaching winter. I didn’t walk today – Daniela came late and couldn’t stay long, because of a dentist’s appt. Tomorrow I am going on an adventure.  C. will take me to Roslyn to see the two remaining kittens – now seven seeks old, perhaps – and to meet Quinn who hadn’t yet been born when I was last there.

 

I hope when all this is over next Monday, the media can relax and start referring to the “King” and the “Queen” instead of, as now, the constant “King Charles III” and “Queen Consort”.

 

Here is the Evendoon, still very slightly damp:

 

Daniella figured out that if you fold the sleeves across the chest, you can fold the towel across the sweater and protect it from the cat. Daniela is good at figuring things out.

 

I’ve heard from Fergus (who is currently in Egypt). He expresses a slight preference for the green which you can see here, but defers to my decision. I have ordered the red, called “Rhubarb”. I think the green is boring. I think the sweater is greatly improved by being lengthened, which involved knitting the ribbing in Rhubarb to keep the stripe sequence right. The ribbing was previously green. (Top-down, remember.) There’s nothing like a compromise which ends up with one doing what one wants.

 

Today I knit some Coofle and also some of the random-Shetland-stripes. Crochet66 (comment yesterday). You’re right, I’ve got the Mooch kit, and, what’s more, I know exactly where it is. I am reluctant to start it since I am so soon to start two things, Fergus’ sweater and the MKAL, and have so many UFO’s drifting about. Daniela can be relied upon never to throw anything away, and she’s brilliant at finding things I have mislaid, but I think there has been some random tidying.

 

Wordle: Major distress about today’s word. Somebody found something on Twitter saying that fewer than 50% got it, whereas the usual success rate is above 90%. Rachel and I got it in six; Alexander, Ketki and Mark all failed (unheard of!); Thomas miraculously scored four. I am glad not to have broken my winning streak, and not to have affected the competition between my Fours and my Fives (see yesterday). I’ll be interested to hear what you think of the word, once midnight passes and it’s OK to discuss it.