Where are we? A day further forward, anyway.

The Sensible Christmas Project is getting on well, and should be finished in comfortable time. It's not exactly much fun, but satisfying to see it emerge from the needles. The yarn is identified as “100% wool yarn by Brown Sheep Co.” – it comes in a little kit – and it is very nice indeed to the hand. DK weight, I would say. The two colours are simple and violent – that's what they're meant to be.

The pattern is sort of intarsia, but since there are only two colours, they are carried across the back from block to block. I am knitting like a small child, picking up and dropping yarns rather than weaving one around the fingers of my left hand and giving it the Fair Isle treatment. This is having the desired result of not tightening the fabric but, as I said, isn't much fun.

The pattern says that you can log on to a video somewhere to see how it's done. Row and stitch numbers on the chart would be more helpful, but I'm managing.

Little else to report. Computer problems – transferring programs from Old Slowcoach -- are more or less in suspension until after the solstice. Card-writing progresses. Present-buying is pretty well finished. Father Christmas will need some help with stocking-fillers. That needs thought. The whole thing is enormously depressing.

Helen is planning to “do” Christmas dinner, cooking at a friend's house around the corner. I'll do the turkey itself, with stuffing and bread sauce, and I'll set the table if I can find the red tablecloth. Alexander is going to do most of the shopping and bring it over on the 23^rd. This might or might not work. Helen is ruthlessly efficient, and Alexander knows what Christmas dinner involves, but it's going to require some serious list-making on the part of all three of us. I will need to think of all the other meals. My husband wouldn't dream of skipping the subsidiary meal, even on Christmas day. (Scrambled eggs and smoked salmon is the usual answer to that one.)

I'll be very glad indeed when the story about vaginal knitting works its way through Zite and falls off the other end. Trouble is, new people keep spotting and repeating it, and Zite keeps picking them up.

Today is Pearl Harbor Day.