Had a lovely holiday at the house of friends. We had a delicious dinner at noon, then went to a local golf course and messed around the putting green for nearly an hour. My healing has progressed to where I can stand and walk short distances without even a cane, longer distances on hard floors with a cane, but still use my walker for streets and sidewalks and carpeted surfaces. So I tottered around the green striking my three yellow golf balls and now and again hitting the little poles that they have instead of holes (which is good, as stooping to retrieve a ball from a hole probably would have left me unable to get back on my feet). Then back to the house to eat ice cream and watch a marathon of “How It’s Made,” and stitching.

I’m working on a belt in needlepoint. I bought it years ago in Savannah while on a book tour selling my first needlework mystery, Crewel World. (Just about every stitcher I know has a collection of projects, some started, all begging for attention. Now and again it’s a good thing to go into that stash and renew an acquaintance with it.) The belt features a row of galloping horses, all black. The horses are done, now I’m working on the background, which is layers of stripes. If you look closely, you’ll notice that each horse’s feet are in a different position – and that they describe the correct progression of a horse at the gallop. If I ever get it made into a belt I can spin around so it looks as if the horses are running around my waist. What’s more, I lost quite a bit of weight during my illness, so there won’t be a large gap between the strap and the buckle.

Have you ever seen a small bird attacking a bigger bird in the air? The bigger bird is probably a crow and the smaller bird is a bereaved parent exacting revenge for the loss of an infant from the nest. I really like crows but they are omnivores, and time the hatching of their young to the birth of rabbits, which is the main source of food for their hatchlings. But they steal other birds’ babies, too. And they will feast on road kill. I don’t mind that last, but it’s sad to watch a parent robin or thrush striking futilely at a crow in the air. You can almost hear the crow laughing.