I’m very droopy, as you predict, Mary Lou, much nap. But all is going well. Perdita remains jumpy and anxious. I wonder if she will eventually come back to my bed? We were inseparable from kittenhood until Paradox displaced her. Now she sleeps Wafa, who feeds her. She is trying to slim her down a bit. Perdita doesn’t like that. 

Wafa takes grand care of me, better perhaps than Cramond at bullying me into doing exercises. Certainly better at seasoning our food.

No knitting. Some attention to duty, but not much.

Wordle: I failed! Winning streak cut short in the early fifties.

Yesterday’s word was AZURE. My preceding word had been ALURE. That’s the one that provoked WordleBot into hinting that it wasn’t a word. Is there a different way to spell it?

Today I started with one brown tile from my two starters, and things never got much better. There were poor scores all round. Alexander and Thomas both needed six. Five for Roger. Then things get better. Four for Ketki, Mark, and Theo. A brilliant three for Rachel.

 Here I am, home. Wafa has made wonderful food, which I cannot do justice to. We have enough to eat for a week at least. Perdita is uneasy, probably worrying about That Other Cat. She looks very well.

   The actual homecoming went smoothly. A Cramond carer had done the packing. Alexander and Ketki came in the early afternoon. They were followed by a get-you-up-the-stairs firm, who brought us here. And managed that bit comfortably. And here we are.

   I haven’t done anything yet. I will see to it all in the morning. Famous Last Words.

   Wordle: Four for me. My two starters produced two green vowels, one brown one, and a brown consonant. An anagram, in fact, which I don’t like. My line three turned all of them green, but I guessed wrong for the fifth letter. Wordle told me after line two that there was only one more possibility. After my line three, it said “There was only one possible solution left, and this wasn’t it.” I’ll try to remember tomorrow to tell you  what my line three was. It wasn’t obscene or politically dubious., as far as I can see. It was the second letter I was missing. 

   Others had trouble too. Ketki and Theo  scored six, Alexander five, four for Thomas and Roger, a sensational two for Rachel. Silence so far from Mark.

 Again, I seem to have omitted to post yesterday’s little essay. No wonder nobody commented on it.

   The weather continues gloomy and equinoctial, I got a lot done towards tomorrow’s home-going. It’s all rather exciting. Wafa and Perdita are already there. Much packing was done here. 

   I’ve heard from C. in Palermo. It sounds as if she is having a grand time. She is about to spend a day Cooking with the Duchess, as Archie and I did. Tomasi di Lampedusa’s adopted son, the Duke of Palma, is her husband. He was the model for Tancred in the book, appearance and mannerism-wise. The actual duke is a distinguished musicologist which there is no evidence of Tancred’s being.

   I’ve finished the 54-row pattern chart for Kate Davies’ Argyle vest, and embarked on the bit where you repeat the last 36 rows of it until you reach armhole-level (which won’t, in fact, be all that much further away).

   Wordle: I got yet another three, along with Thomas and Theo. Four for Roger and Mark. Five for Alrxander and Ketki. Rachel was today’s superstar with a two. 

 Weather gloomy, wet and dark. Worse in Greece, where Helen (and her pupils) sound as if they may be marooned on Mount Pelion when the mosaic course finishes.

   If all goes well, Wafa and Perdita will move into Drummond Place tomorrow. Paradox’ new owner has sent me a delicious picture of her, in the posture of a cat who completely trusts her housemates, flat  on her back, furry tummy available for scratching.

   I had a shower this morning and am ready for the new adventure, as far as cleanliness can take me. I also put in a grocery order, to be delivered on Friday, as I re-assume the responsibilities of life.

   And I’ve finished round 53 of the Argyll vest, and wound and attached a new ball of yarn, the fourth I think. It’s looking good.

   Comment yesterday: I don’t think kimchi-making would quite  do as an activity here. Too high a proportion of us are slightly demented or hard of hearing or both. It’s not like the retirement community where my mother used to live, Meadow Lakes, near Princeton. Nor like the English one Richard Osman imagines for his thrillers.

   Wordle: another three! This time the starters gave me one green vowel and two brown tile#, a vowel and a consonant. I struggled as before to think of anything, and, as before, when I succeeded, it was right. Again WordleBot was rude: there were 11 words to choose from, it said. I was lucky. I still can’t think of any others. It certainly pays off to hold out for a real entry, rather than a Jean-word, for line three.

    Rachel, Alexander and Theo were the other threes. Thomas and Ketki needed four, Mark five. Roger scored a brilliant two.

   

   

 Another day. Wet and blustery here.

   My home-going draws near. I’m worried about it. If I have to come back here, what will I bring? Perdita will be all right with Helen. I’ve already chosen three pictures. But what about books? Which  are the ones I can’t live without knowing they’re available at arm’s length?  And what about cooking? Can I face a future in which I never slice another onion? Wiser not to think ahead. I’m going home to cat and pictures and books and onions on Friday. That’s enuf for now.

   Knitting progresses, and looks better and better. I’ve now reached round 50 of KD’s Argyll vest, and have nearly finished the third skein of yarn. I’m confident that I have enough knitting (and yarn-winding) to last until I get back to Drummond Place. I meant to mention that KD showed us a very attractive coloured version, the other day, of a two-toned cardigan she had published previously. Unpronounceable and instantly forgettable Gaelic name, alas. I would find a cardigan useful if I have to come back here.

Wordle: My starters — as often, I feel — yielded one green and one brown tile, both vowels. It was extraordinarily difficult to think of ANY word for line three. My starters knock out the five commonest consonants, and all vowels except Y. I finally found a word, and it was right, so three for me. WordleBot in the Times was very scornful. There were a dozen or so possibilities. I was lucky, it said.

   Alexander, Mark and Thomas were fellow threes. Rachel and Roger both got stuck on ???, grn, ???, grn, grn. Rachel got out of it with five, Roger went the whole way with six. Ketki was the only four. Theo scored five but approached that score by a different route from the one just mentioned. 

Roger

 So, what happened today? Nothing much. The knitting has progressed to round 47 (of Kate Davies’ Argyll vest) and, despite occasional lapses, it’s looking good. I’ll need a few more tools once I reach the underarms — I think the timing will come out about right. I should be home before I need anything more. 

  I saw the physiotherapist today. She agreed with Alexander and Ketki that I will need help getting up the steps when I get home on Friday, and was glad to hear that that had been arranged. We talked about wheelchairs. She thinks I should aim at self-propelled, rather than electric such as everybody has in DC. 

  I think what I need now is a conference with a non-specialist doctor. I am being overwhelmed with lungs and heart and hip.

  Books: a pleasanter topic. Keeping a list of books-read is sort of fun. I was pleased to discover how many of us do it. I have separate pages for each calendar year, and at the bottom add a little list of books I might want to read, picked up from reviews and recommendations, today I started reading “Still Life: Sketches from a Tunbridge Wells Childhood” by Richard Cobb. I’m finding it a bit slow and heavy, but will persevere.

Wordle: yesterday was the day my great-grandson Lennie was born. My starters gave me four browns: H, I, T, R. Surely the answer was BIRTH? But it wasn’t.

Twos, threes and fours today. I had a four. Poor Thomas got stuck on ???, grn, grn, grn, grn and needed five. His father Alexander scored a brilliant two. No news from Roger. 

 C. was here this morning. She will be jetting off to Palermo tomorrow. Helen is already on the slopes of Mt. Pelion. Both will be back soon. Alexander and Ketki will be here for the great transfer — Cramond to Drummond Place— on Friday. And I’ll have Wafa, and my dear cat. I am nevertheless feeling slightly anxious and bereft.

   I have no more news for you of Lenny in London.

   Knitting progresses well. I have embarked on round 44. It’s looking wonderfully sculptural. 

   I have made a practice, for a good few years now, of making a note of the books I finish reading. It is depressing, looking back, to see how many of them I have no memory of at all. Never mind that, for the moment. Today I finished The Favour by Nicci French, and when I went to inscribe it, was horrified to find that I didn’t finish anything in September. I doubt if that has ever happened before. Most recent reading, according to the record, has been re-reading: Jane Austen and Ruth Rendell, primarily.

   Wordle: again I have something to say which I must suppress until tomorrow. We were three-four-five today. Threes for Mark, Thomas, Theo and Ketki.  Fours for me, Roger and Alexander. Poor Rachel needed five, bogged down, no doubt, by the responsibilities of additional grandmotherhood. 

 Today’s news: Lenny Edward William H. I’m sure, if I were only a bit more technologically inventive, I could show you pictures of him, but as it is you will have to wait until I get home next week. It is for him, of course, that that shawl is destined. 

   It was a brisk labour, but even so Lizzie says, never again. 

  And my more recent knitting, Kate Davies’ Argyll vest, has reached the beginning of round 42. I continue to improve, I think, in distinguishing left from right — never easy — and understanding how the pattern works. 

  Not much else to report. Helen has reached Mount Pelion and is busy arranging the materials for her mosaic class. C., bless her, has been to Drummond Place and has ensured that the key to the house is in the key safe. Wafa is arriving the day before I do, and will need it. So will I, indeed. I don’t have any keys with me. 

   I sat out in the garden for a while this morning. No one else was there. It was quiet. But there were no little birds, no sparrows. We are under an Edinburgh Airport flight path. Maybe that explains it. But I felt both saddened and alarmed.

Wordle: it was another easy one, I gather. Thomas, Theo, Alexander and Mark got threes. Four for Ketki, Rachel, and Roger. And I thoroughly un-distinguished myself with a five. No Jean-words, either. All of my entries were serious attempts.

 So, Wednesday I left Wordle out and yesterday it was knitting. I”d better start there. I have reached round 38. It’s looking well. It’s slow work, but since it’s a sleeveless pullover, it’ll be nearly finished (except for some ribbing) when it’s finished.

   A quiet day otherwise. C. came.. She’s busy packing for a holiday in Sicily.

   I had no nap today (own fault) and am suddenly overwhelmed with tired. I’d better go to bed once I’ve told you about Wordle.

   It was another pretty easy one. Thomas, Mark, and Rachel needed four. There were threes for me and Roger and Theo, twos for Alexander and Ketki. 

 I have just discovered that I never published yesterday’s blog entry, quite apart from having forgotten to include Wordle in its excitements. So now it’s up, and here is today’s.

   But nothing much happened today. Helen has gone to Thessaloniki, as a prelude to teaching mosaic-making on the slopes of Mt Pelion. I have realised that my departure for Drummond Place is really getting quite close — next Friday, in fact. Alexander and Ketki are in charge. And I think Wafa will be involved

  Wordle: I seem to be lacking a day in my record of Wordle results. My glorious  two was on Tuesday the 19th, as recorded here. Yesterday I scored three for a forgotten word. Today was another three. My starters gave me one green and four browns — i.e., no more letters to supply, just an anagram to solve. Alexander, Ketki, Mark and Roger were the other threes. Rachel, Thomas and Theo had the fours.

 I went to an “Italian afternoon” yesterday, expecting broken phrases and sips of Chianti. We had the latter, but no Italian conversation, just a famous film from the 50’s — “Three Coins in the Fountain”. It’s unbelievably bad. I think I was vaguely expecting “Roman Holiday”. It must be contemporaneous, but RH may be in black and white. Does that matter, when you’ve got Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck and an intelligent script?

   “Three Coins” was vaguely interesting as a sociological document. Offices with no trace of electronics. Smart, attractive women busy with their typewriters, interested only in getting married. The empty streets of Rome populated only by extras, looking awfully extra. 1952? I just looked it up — 1954.  “Roman Holiday” is 1953. Now I’ll have to contrive to see it again. Lots of things aren’t as good as one remembers, although few are as bad as “Three Coins in the Fountain”.

Otherwise there is little to report. Helen came for a last visit before her 10 days in Greece. Knitting moved forward. It’s slow work, especially in the rounds with lots of crosses. I’ve now reached round 28 and am advancing towards a passage which may produce more apparent progress tomorrow.

“

 More dull, wet and gloomy.

Helen came this morning, and went away with a bagful of Things I don’t immediately need. She’ll bring the empty bag back tomorrow, and go to Greece on Thursday. Alexander and Ketki came in the afternoon, full of plans for getting me home. They have no confidence in me to get up the six steps from the pavement (sidewalk) to my front door. I feel sure I can surmount that hazard in a bound.

   It turns out that this problem can be met either by a commercial firm or a charity. Either one meets you at hospital or care home or wherever and takes you home and gets you in. I suspect that they expect something more like a second-floor tenement rather than six steps up from the pavement, but never mind. Neither is available until next Friday, the 29th, so departure from Cramond has been postponed until then. 

   Knitting continues well. I have reached round 23 on the Argyle vest. That’s five rounds further than yesterday. And I continue to make progress with understanding forward and backward twists. 

Wordle: easy-peasy today. Mark was the dullard, with four, Ketki and I the stars with two. Threes elsewhere. 

 Dull, wet and gloomy changed into something quite pleasant-looking when it was too late in the day for any of us oldies to get out and enjoy it. I spent my time knitting when I wasn’t being bathed or otherwise attended to. I’ve reached round 18 of the Argyle vest.

   It’s going briskly and pleasantly except in a couple of spots where I took my mental eyes off it for a moment. You’re right, Mary Lou, that I’m coming to understand the pattern better. The first step forward was when I grasped that left twists and right twists weren’t quite the same as decreases, and that therefore the golden rule didn’t apply: the stitch the needle enters first doesn’t necessarily wind up on top.

   Arrangements continue to move forward towards my return to Drummond Place on Wednesday the 27th.  I don’t know how the others feel: neither Helen nor I is fully convinced that I’m up to it. But if I have to come back here in Forever Mode, it would change the scene drastically. A future with no cat and no cooking. 

   Wordle: it was a bit tougher today. Mark was the star with the only three. Fives for Thomas and Ketki. Fours elsewhere, including me. We h have n’t heard from Roger yet.

 I’ve had a successful day’s knitting, at any rate. I’m now halfway around Round 11. It’s beginning to get a bit faster, and may even speed up a bit more when I understand the pattern more thoroughly. There are only two techniques, twist 2 right and twist two left. The former is dead easy, the latter not difficult. You’ve still got to keep them separate in your mind, and remember which one you’re supposed to be doing. Later on I hope it will be obvious which travelling stitch is headed where, and therefore obvious how to get it there.

   At the moment, I can’t even listen to a podcast as I knit.

Sundays are quiet, and mine was devoted to knitting, so I have nothing else to report. C. came to see me after Mass.  They have been remaking the garden, at the University chaplaincy where we go, and she says it’s still not possible to get a wheelchair in, so I’m not missing anything.

Wordle: all threes and fours today. I was in the former group, which narrowly predominated.

 Sun, this evening, after a day of unremitting gloom. Helen and David stopped in to see me, with a friend I didn’t remember but should have, on their way to Glasgow to see the recently-reopened Burrell Collection.

Yesterday”s gas man claims to have been successful — Alexander knows no more than that. So things are in train to get me home to DP on Wednesday the 27th. I am eagerly looking forward to living  with my remaining cat, and to eating seasoned food and to having a second glass of cider if I fancy it. But nervous, too, after three months cushioned in care. And my hip is undoubtedly, very recently, worse. Can Wafa and I manage?

Knitting: I was tremendously grateful for your comment, Tamar — cheerfully assuming  I would rip out a round and a half. I went to bed last night hoping somebody would suggest a fudge. But there was nothing to be done — if I had knit on to the starting point and then turned, there would have been those two messy rounds at the beginning to haunt me forever. As it was, it didn’t really take all that long. Retrieving ribbed stitches is easy because you can see whether you’ve got them all. Once I had them, I put in an extra row of ribbing  to get everybody settled in the right direction and un-split. 

I’ve now reached round five. It’s going to be slow work.

Wordle: back to our usual spread today — threes and fours. Mark, Thomas and Rachel were the threes.

Yesterday”s word was EXERT. My starters gave me ERT, all brown. I can’t remember what I put in line three. I think it was an accidental Jean-word, re-using a letter already excluded. It gave me the second E, however. I was fiddling around with the anagram, typing in X for the unknown letter as is my wont, when I looked at the screen and saw that I had typed in the answer, X and all.

Eventful. Lousy-looking weather, though.

   A) Alexander says the gas leak has been fixed, and that therefore I can leave Cramond on the 21st. No details, about the leak. I am nervous about leaving, after being lapped in unseasoned luxury for two and a half months. Helen fears I need more care than a carer (Wafa) can provide, but I don’t think that is true at the moment. It probably will be soon.

   (B) and (C) suddenly the rest of the day doesn’t seem interesting

 

  (D) I’m in trouble with the knitting.

I finished the ribbing and embarked on the first pattern row. It was/is perfectly simple if you are familiar with travelling stitches. I should have practiced in advance. Towards the end of the round I counted ahead and saw that the pattern repeats were not going to coincide with the end of the round. So I ripped it all out and laboriously recaptured the stitches and knit the first round, pausing after every 18-stitch repeat to count and to move the marker. It came out even: 14 repeats.

I knit more than half of the second round. I feel I am beginning to get the hang of it.

I noticed that my beautiful, deep, twisted-stitch rib was now on the inside. Not a twist but a short round — somewhere or other I turned around and went in the other direction. I can’t find the place, so it’s probably at the beginning. I fear I’ll have to frog back to there and start the pattern again. I’ll leave it for tonight. Maybe by tomorrow morning I will have decided on an inferior fudge.

Wordle: it looks as if today we have achieved the nirvana I have long hoped for: we all have the same score, namely four. But Mark hasn’t been heard from so could still spoil it all. I have more to say about how I arrived at my four and will have to hope I can remember until tomorrow.

 Much feeling of new-season in the weather. Helen and David are still in Kirkmichael. I’ve had a pleasant day here in Cramond. We’ve been joined by a New Boy, 6’6” at least, whose presence means that we don’t all fit into the dining room any more — although the difficulty, of course, isn’t physical size. I’ve just had a very pleasant supper with three others in a lounge so close I could walk to it, or at least stagger.

And we talked to each other, which doesn’t often happen in the dining room. 

I need a physiotherapist to advise on walking. How do you do it most efficiently as your left hip collapses?  Perhaps a stick could serve as the left leg while I otherwise hop on the right foot? I need professional advice. A Zimmer frame doesn’t work very well any more.

Knitting has gone forward nicely, too. I’ve finished the wide ribbing, and have embarked, but only just, on the real pattern. 

Anonymous (comment yesterday): I have much sympathy with your comment, that I am knitting a moebius strip, once I have twisted it. And I have little confidence in my own acumen, these days. But I can see that it’s not twisted— the second twist must have undone the damage of  the first, as I meant it to. I can’t even test things out with strips of paper, as perhaps I could if I were at home with pins and things.

Wordle: I was the class dunce, with five, yet again. Four fours, three threes, and me. And I have pretty well weaned myself of Jean-words. It was certainly so today — every line was a serious possible answer.

 The weather really begins to feel as if the season has turned.

   Helen and David were here this morning, on their way to Kirkmichael, with plans to move the driveway-ditch-neighbour problem forward. Helen doesn’t think that the firm which has been hired to deal with my gas leak will necessarily be able to do the job on the day. We shall see. I certainly won’t make any concrete plans for going home until I have further news.

   But I have been reflecting on how much worse I have become since I came to Cramond sometime in July. In Drummond Place, even with Wafa there, I would get up and get dressed and walk (with Zimmer frame) the considerable length of the house in order  to feed my cats. I couldn’t do that now. I must start practising long walks tomorrow. On the other hand, I didn’t come here straight from Drummond Place — 10 days in hospital intervene. I’m better in many ways — except for walking.

   Knitting: oh, dear. When I was nearly back to where I was when I ripped it all out, I realised that it was, after all, twisted.

   There is a little gap in the smooth lower edge, just where I put in a halfway marker for the back. I think it probably happened when I was knitting the first joined-in-the-round round. Today, I knit on to the beginning of the round, and twisted it back. And I think I will be able to repair the bottom edge fairly successfully once I am at home with a darning needle.

   I also think I understand more clearly what has happened. The first mistake — the one that prompted me to rip everything out — was a “short round” as I said. Unless corrected with a corresponding turn in the other direction, it leaves me knitting inside-out. Whereas today’s error was a twist in the work. I’m still working right-side-out but with the whole thing twisted.

   I’m being very, very careful every time I pick it up — although another twist is pretty well impossible by now.

  Wordle: I was the class dunce again, with the only five. Ketki and Alexander both got two. Everybody else had three except Roger, who made me feel a bit better with a four. 

 Cool but largely sunny today.

Ketki and Alexander say that a man is coming to mend my gas leak on Friday — which rather contradicts what I had been told earlier, about how difficult it could be to locate it, with much ripping-up of floorboards. We shall see. I am so slow and unsteady on my pins these days that there can be no question of my leaving this dull and comfortable place until gas and floorboards and live-in help (and CAT) are back in place.

Knitting went well, spurred on by the sense of self-satisfaction gained from a necessary ripping-out. I’m not as far along as previously, but nearly so, and it certainly looks better with the twisted rib on the outside. I think the size is better, too. The main pattern, when I finally  get there, is twisted stitch, too. I did a course on it at Camp Stitches in (I think) 1999with Candace Strick. Although I went back to Camp Stitches the following year, and to Stitches itself a year or two later, Bavarian Twisted Stitches were the only subject I ever learned anything about.

Helen and David came to see me this morning. They are going to Kirkmichael soon, perhaps tomorrow — but Perdita will have Archie and Fergus to talk to, so that’s all right. It sounds as if they might have a breakthrough in the neighbour-problem there (involving driveway and ditch).

Wordle: Yesterday’s word was OLDER. By line four I had four letters, two of them green, and guessed OLLER, figuring, as I often do, that if it’s not a word, Wordle won’t accept. But it was accepted. I looked it up afterwards. It means “waste land” in some dialect or other. It left me with O, L, ???, E, R but even so I had toiled through most of the unused letters — mercifully, without Wordle accepting the result — before I found D.

Today: three for Ketki, Alexander and Mark; four for Theo, Thomas, and Rachel. An undistinguished five for me.

 The weather was a bit on and off today. I didn’t get out. Helen and her family should be back today. I eagerly look forward to hearing that they all are safely here, and that Perdita, who has been alone in the house all this while, fed by a neighbour, is OK

   My fall: no further repercussions. Tamar, they do have an alarm in the bathroom. I tugged and t ugged but it didn’t work. To their credit, it was put right this morning, and I have also been issued with a portable  alarm to wear on my wrist. Kirsten, you’re right, a stool or even the right sort of chair would help. Something to sit on while I brush my teeth and wash behind my ears. 

   Knitting: i started again. I was about halfway through the ribbing when it t looked to me as if I had somehow turned it inside out. The properly twisted rib seemed to be mostly on the inside, except for the last two rounds. (“Look at your knitting” — one of the most useful of EZ’s maxims.) This sort of thing can happen, has happened to me before, if I pick something up after a gap and set off in the wrong direction.

   But in that case — trying to force my age-fogged brain into action — I would have achieved a “short round”, and ought to be able to spot the parts that were two rounds deeper than other parts.

   But what if I had made the mistake at the starting point? I might have laid it aside  precisely there.

   I continued to be uneasy about size. I remembered another useful rule of life, this one taught me by a nun at the school where I used to teach: When in doubt, take it out.

   So I did, and started again with a substantially smaller size. Much stitch-counting, much careful attention  to not twisting. I am nearly finished with the second round.

   Wordle: again, I found it very hard, and again scraped home with six. And again have something to say about it, if I can hold it in memory until tomorrow.  Rachel joined me with six. Alexander had five. Ketki and her son Thomas scored four. Mark had a sensational three which he modestly attributes to luck.silence, so far, from across the pond.