Yes. I know I’ve been quiet except for these monthly crochet and knitting posts, which provide at least a bit of focus for my life. They’re not just about knitting, of course. It’s not that there’s nothing else to write about. Of course that can’t be true given the enormity of *gestures around* all of this. If anything, there’s too much and it’s impossible to determine a starting point. Whatever I say risks coming across as trite or smug given the real threats and difficulties we all face at the moment, and also given the fact that I feel like it’s not really fitting or respectful to let out a huge wail from what is, after all, a relatively secure ivory tower. For the last few weeks I have felt constrained by my visa renewal too, which probably warrants a post in itself, but I am told that my passport with extended visa will be delivered tomorrow and that I can go ahead with my plans for a trip home next week. NEXT WEEK! How I’ve longed for that!

I’m not sure exactly how I’m hoping to transport my temperature blanket intact. Now that I’m a third of the way through making it, it’s getting big and heavy and not easy to keep between those little needle tips. I’ve had a couple of mishaps where I’ve had to pick up twenty or thirty stitches that fell off the needle. This week I knitted instead of purled about thirty stitches. How much grief results from just a momentary lapse! I did, however, manage to salvage the blanket by using a long knitting needle as a lifeline and unravelling and re-knitting a section of about four rows. It took me several passes to correct and pick up the dropped stitches. I’ve more or less managed it, but imperfections remain and it will never be perfect. Still, what is? I’m considering buying some gold embroidery thread to enhance the mending in a kintsugi way. (Incidentally I saw this week that people are offering classes in kintsugi. Do you turn up to find a ready-smashed pot at a work station or do you get to smash the pot yourself and rebuild it?)

The monotony of the red/orange/red/orange Hong Kong hot season continued in July. We’ve had almost three months where the temperature has not dipped below 26C, though this weekend has been cooled by the rain from the incipient typhoon that never was now in the sea off Hainan Island. Life is still monotonous here and has become more so, with our most recent period of more stringent semi-lockdown precipitated by our third spike of the virus. The gym has closed again, and restaurants and bars close between 6pm and 5am, with socialising outside in groups of more than two currently not allowed. Masks are now mandatory indoors and out at all time with very few acceptable excuses and a fine of HKD 5,000 (around £500), and running outside has proved challenging. Still, something is better than nothing.

Panicked by several consecutive days of more than 100 virus cases (all of whom are taken to hospital) the HK government imposed a ban on dining in during the day at restaurants, which was quickly lifted after one day when this photo of HK Chief Executive Carrie Lam enjoying a cup of coffee inside while an ordinary worker had to eat his lunch outside in the rain behind her circulated on social media, emphasising the disconnect between people of power and privilege and the ordinary residents. The dine-in ban was a step too far in a place where huge amounts of people live in tiny apartments without cooking facilities and depend on small eateries.

I’m making progress with my crocheting. The granny square above comes from Design by Phanessa. I enjoyed the challenge of May’s mosaic crochet square so much that I have some ideas in mind for future squares but too many consecutive technical marvels seemed like overkill, so this granny with a floral twist appealed immediately for the June square. Prépare yourself for the excitement of my July square, which took me all of last weekend to practise. I bet you can’t wait.