Here we are.

January is in fact a good deal darker than November. I worked it out. The difference is entirely due to hope. Today will be a sort of winter solstice for the whole world – the worst is behind us; things will get better.

Yesterday shares in the Royal Bank of Scotland, of which we own a fair number, became valueless. I thought of a tsunami-survivor who said she looked out of her hotel window towards the sea, and it wasn’t there.

The United Kingdom is in a very bad way – Iceland-on-the-Thames. And there is no hope at all for us unless the American economy improves. So our wishes for Mr Obama are more than brotherly good-will.

I hope to watch the inauguration, like everybody else in the world. I have never heard more than tiny snippets of his speeches, although I read the great speech about race in full the day he gave it. I read somewhere that inauguration speeches are traditionally short; that’s good. I’ll get on with that sleeve.

I bought far too much yarn for this project. (Not the first time that’s happened.) I’m going to have two whole skeins of the body-colour left, plus a sweater’s-worth of the greenery-yallery-Grosvenor-Gallery colour I bought to go with it, the original idea having been an all-over two-colour pattern. But I’m a bit concerned about whether I’ll have enough grey for the neck placket and collar.

I could do them in the body colour, of course. Or in Calcutta Cup pink; that’s maybe the answer.

Tamar has posted an interesting variation of the three-needle bind-off to HistoricKnit. I hope I’m not violating copyright by mentioning it here. I’m going to use it on the shoulders: namely, knit the shoulders together and then, on the next row, bind off. It makes a stronger seam and sounds as if it might be better-looking, too.