The Athenians are gone. All is quiet. The really good thing about Christmas is that it fast-forwards us through these, the toughest days of the year. The Athenians will  be back soon. I emailed Helen last night with preliminary thoughts about what bird to order for Christmas dinner.

The idea will be to keep everything as simple as possible. No cake... 

Buy a pudding. But after that, simplicity becomes difficult. I want to make an American-type stuffing with breadcrumbs and celery and no meat. And one can’t buy in cranberry sauce! Or brandy butter! Supermarkets may, however, come up with some ready-to-cook potatoes and sprouts.

The new second cousin, Ted LeCompte, has been added to my Lotus Organizer calendar. What a cluster of birthdays we have this time of year! Between October 30 and November 19^th, four grandchildren, a husband, and now a great-nephew.

So, November. Forward. Maybe I’ll knit the first little piece of my Silly Christmas Knitting Project today. But I also want to finish the first rank of rams’ horns, on the Rams & Yowes blankie, so that I can show you how it’s looking.

For my progress bar – and I know, it’s not rocket science nor meant to be – I am allowing 80% for the patterned centre, 20% for the edging of this thing. That may not be quite right. There’s a lot of edging; it’s knit double. That is, you knit it outwards and then you put in a fold line and knit it inwards. There’s a lot of picking-up-of-stitches and of securing the edging, one way or another, to the back of the blankie at the end. But there’s no colour work. We shall see.