It sounds as if they’re going to announce in Switzerland today that they may have spotted the Higgs boson. It will be a feather in the cap of Drummond Place, if so, as Professor Higgs used to live here. It was quite a while ago, and he wasn’t here long, maybe 18 months, but still, here. Drummond-Place-in-history runs rather to poets and artists – a Nobel Prize for Physics would be a bracing change.

My husband is better. I consulted a dr by telephone yesterday, a facility our practice now offers as standard. I hope they all do. He agreed that the markers I mentioned yesterday were significant, and said that my husband must be seen if any of them regressed. He also thought that an antibiotic might help, and he seems to have been right. At any rate, we’ve had a nearly cough-free night. It took all the rest of yesterday morning for me to get across town to the surgery to pick up the prescription – paper, with an actual dr’s signature, is still required – and then to get up to Boots to activate it.

But I got my pensum of Christmas cards written in the afternoon.

On the subject of Christmas: the pedant in me has noticed (Zite, again) that a significant minority of people seem to believe that “the twelve days of Christmas” refers to the period we are currently enduring. It does not. The 12-day count begins on 25 December and ends on – wait for it – Twelfth Night. The first time I spotted that error, I assumed it was an individual’s idiosyncratic mistake, but it keeps cropping up.

I finished knitting the second hat. My list of the year’s FO’s positively sparkles for December. There is still Arne & Carlos’ pig ornament to knit and take to Loch Fyne next week, but knitting, especially in December, is required to sooth as well as entertain. Christmas-tree-bauble-knitting is a lot of fun, and indeed addictive, but not soothing.

So, after tidying up the hat, I reverted last night to the KF hand-dyed-effect sock. Tomorrow is Wednesday. I’ll cast on the ornament during my osteoporosis half-hour and trust it to knit itself thereafter.

The sock yarn still slightly worries and slightly irritates me. The sock which is emerging is fine, wonderfully soft, and the sloooooooow colour changes are splendid. But the ball keeps falling apart and the yarn keeps splitting. We’ll see. I think when I was knitting in a&e the other night, I got into the swing of it and it sped forward like any sock. I hope that will happen again.

Zite found me an interesting hat pattern yesterday: the Regina. Here is a link to the one Zite illustrated which I think looks better than the designer’s colour scheme. It sounds fun, and madelinetosh DK is actually mentioned. What if I dipped into the delicious pile of yarn my sister recently brought me for my Effortless (or Vitamin D, as the case may prove)? I mustn’t, but I'm tempted.