Back in Edinburgh

...with much to say and show, and no time, due to the necessity of cleaning up and getting in some food before the New Year descends. Scotland still takes it pretty seriously. I wrote to Janis about that yesterday, and she asked what the seriousness consists of. I feel a whole essay looming on that subject. Very soon...

Someone wrote anonymously about my post from London about the tsunami, saying that some things were beyond words. I'm not entirely sure, here. There was a general holiday lightness of tone on the Knitlist on Sunday and Monday, combined with not the slightest hint that anyone had ever heard of the Indian Ocean, which upset me. Things are different now. People are writing about various fund-raising efforts.

And I was wrong about the worst-natural-disaster. The Tianjin earthquake in China in1976 killed a quarter of a million people. That was just the other day. I've never even heard of it.

Our son James and his family, who live in Beijing, spent Christmas last year in Thailand. Their seven-year-old was considerably disappointed when she grasped that they weren't going to Toyland. We all speak to each other on the phone on Christmas day. Last Saturday, I even said to James, Where are you? Have you gone to Thailand again? No, we're in Beijing. It was a considerable comfort to know that, over the following hours. I wrote to him yesterday to ask where, exactly, in Thailand they had been.

Knitting: I finished Rachel's socks on the train coming home yesterday and started a pair for grandson Thomas. I've now got two grandsons Thomas, as that is the new baby's name. These socks are for the big one, though.