11 June: Poised

The cat's at his holiday home, the car's fuelled, the luggage has been pulled out of the top of the wardrobe, it's raining - yes, it's holiday time!

I'm wondering whether to add the fleece-lined wellies to the growing stack of all-weather clothing (shorts and waterproofs, flip-flops and thick wool jerseys).

Maps and guide books are piled up with the details of the cottage we've booked; provisions have been assembled; camera batteries charged and binoculars dusted off.

Much thought has been given to the knitting project to take - and it's been cast on, so that the pattern could be checked out (remembering the time I took a pattern for socks that developed into dainty little items that would never fit my size 9 feet, and I was stuck for a week with no knitting). Wonderful yarn - merino/silk, handspun from some Wingham fibre, and another attempt at a Marianne Isager zigzag design -

And the light holiday reading is chosen - as well as the books of sudoku and of crosswords, DH has Gogol's Dead Souls and Beowulf (in translation), and I'm taking a 500-page tome called The Scourging Angel - the Black Death in the British Isles.

We know how to enjoy ourselves.