if I ever

mention anything again that involves me doing my own charts, can someone please, please, take me gently by the hand, lead me outside, and then hit me repeatedly around the head with a mouldy kipper.

After having successfully identified that I was trying to fit a 28 stitch pattern into 25 stitches, I merrily went on my knitting way. And another row was done. (Look, that makes 20 rows.)

Then, I realised that having corrected the quart into pint pot basic error, I now had a whole stuffing a quart into a teaspoon error. Because in shuffling the 28 stitches, I had somehow forgotten it would then impact on the next 200 stitches, and throw the second half of each and every knit row out. Yes, I get points for thinking ahead.

Yippee, more counting, figuring, refiguring. Problem fixed. 21 rows completed (379 to go). 4 rows later, I see that there was indeed a much easier fix, which didn't involve throwing what little symmetry I had out the window. A fix that I had already suggested to myself in my notes, but been too lazy to mark up. The notes that have been scanned, photocopied, with back-ups left in fire-and-water-and-act-of-God proof safes, and carried near 800 miles since the Knitting Olympics began. The notes that I had not consulted. The notes that are now muddy and wet, after the cat came in from the cold and sat on them, twice (I think she might be a double-agent - come on, which team has been bribing her with tuna fish?).

Make that two mouldy kippers.