Craft and cake coven

It was craft and cake today in Catford. Lots of knitting, lots of chatter, lots of beautiful cakes and scones and a fabulous feeling of camaraderie. Nathan is buzzing after too much tea and can't stop talking. He's talking about knitting socks, an area in which he's recently become an expert. He's even started designing his own patterns. Other members of the craft and cake coven think he may have missed a vocation in life!

The coven

There's little else to say. I've taken a full weekend off and it's rather wonderful. I can get cracking with work tomorrow feeling refreshed and upbeat. I may even set my alarm to go off an hour earlier than normal. I should try to do some exercise as well. I'm fat like Pootle the Flump.

350 years ago, and Pepys' Diary entry makes it clear that his decision to send his wife to Huntingdonshire was not about curing her ague with a dose of fresh country air, but about curing the ague of their servant girl, Sarah. It's unsurprising that Elizabeth was slightly reticent about going, and probably more than a little suspicious. Still, she was wisely using the fact that her husband was keen to get shot of her for a few weeks by insisting that he indulge her in a bit of retail therapy.

On this particular date in 1662, she took Pepys to look at "some new-fashion pettycoats of sarcenett, with a black broad lace printed round the bottom and before." Pepys added that that clothes were "very handsome" and that his wife "had a mind to buy one of them." He obviously put his foot down, because the deliciously detailed description ends with his stating that they decided not to buy one. A bit of a non-anecdote. Sarcenet, for fabric freaks, is, or was, I'm told, a fabric similar to suit-lining material. All a bit Anne Summers, then!