The fifth piece of the Silly Christmas Project was not only bigger than the four preceding, it also involved more fancy footwork. I got about halfway through it last night, and polished it off this morning during the hated half-hour I have to wait after my osteoporosis pill (Wednesdays only) before I can have any coffee or even lie down. I could, of course, have been blogging.

I love the way this thing is looking – if only I can do it justice in the assembly and embroidery. I’ve got to go back up to St James Centre today to dispatch a birthday present to a grandchild. I think I’m far enough along that I can allow myself to buy a couple of skeins of embroidery thread.

This kind of book – “Knit Your Own Britain” by Jackie Holt and Ruth Bailey – requires not only a good deal of ingenuity from its authors, but also ruthless accuracy. I can tell you that page 114, at least, is perfect.

Non-knit

I read in one of my magazines yesterday that Marks & Spencer are selling chocolate Brussels sprouts. Now that I am seriously engaged with the dreadful holiday to come, I might as well walk along and see if I can get a few of those.

My sister and her husband are in DC, getting acquainted with their long-hoped-for grandson. My sister says he is a calm baby, good at eating. Theo sent this picture yesterday of his father and his son. Grandparenting is hard work.

Thanks for your comments about my Strathardle problem, and about longevity. This week was relatively clear and has now filled itself up; that’s good. I’ll let things drift until my husband brings the subject up again. He is often calm and sensible, and may have some ideas of his own on the subject. November has the advantage that he would be outdoors only for a couple of hours, at most, at midday. By the time he gets up from an afternoon nap, it’s too dark to venture far from the fireside.

But of course it’s November itself, and the darkness, which increase my sense of foreboding.

I was interested in your comment, Barbara M., about your anxiety when you were the age at which your mother died. This has long been a theory of mine – that passing through the age at which one’s parents died or had a major stressful event can be a hard time. My husband’s father died young of a brain tumour, and being that age himself was hard on my husband. I had a bad year when I was the age at which my parents divorced. I’ve seen it in others.

Back to knitting

…although there’s little to say. The second rank of rams is done, on the Rams & Yowes blankie – I should reach the half-way point on the patterned centre by the end of the week, or nearly. Milano needs four more every-other-row underarm increases. It remains a great comfort at the end of every day.