I cannot understand my state of health. It is better today than it has been for months. Maybe this new diet is doing some good. Certainly I felt much better yesterday as well. Today I have had more energy than I am accustomed to!! So I got lots of things done.

This is the warp for Margaret Roach Wheeler's class on 'Designing the Mahotan Way'. It is being held at Reading in ten days time. Today I have threaded up completely, wound on, tied on, checked it, corrected the sleying (missed a dent) and done a header of tabby. The warp is 2/12 cotton and is a mixture of four colours, two shades of red, black and sort of blue-green. I have put on 5 metres of warp 14 inches wide as I want to make a top from the fabric when I have finished.

Today I have finished the covers for a new Coptic book. These are Michael's larger enamel samples. I have mounted them on high-class sycamore, stolen from Michael's musical instrument selection of woods. The wood was sanded down which was not difficult and cut apart with a knife which was tedious but I did not fancy sawing the wood into sections for fear of splintering the edges. The enamels were glued down with Araldite and clamped over night, then polished with beeswax, after a final sanding. The top two are to be used as covers. The lower one was done as a trial. Now I have to see if I can sew the paper and these covers together.

Interesting that, when I opened the tin of beeswax polish, a very familiar smell rose from the contents. It has bothered me for a day or so as to what it reminded me of. It is the polish my mother used for the floors when we lived in Gillespie Crescent in Edinburgh in the early 50s!! How strange. Suddenly I can remember the layout of that house and where the linoleum was.