The Advent Calendar Day 2

Window #2

Today I am recognising the wonder of wool socks to keep feet warm and comfortable all winter long. I began knitting socks a few years ago when sock yarn of wool reinforced with nylon for strength became available. I have my friend Sunny to thank for introducing me to these yarns when she was visiting and pulled out an intricate Fair Isle pattern sock on her needles. I was impressed, but she said, "No, no, no. the intricate pattern was dyed into the wool." Way back in the 1970s, I had knit a few pair of socks. but the wool ones shrunk pretty quickly, and what was the point of spending time knitting with un-natural acrylic yarn. The striped and patterned socks are great fun to knit as the pattern develops.

The spiffy patterned yarn was not available in England for years, so I stocked up on trips to the States, to Germany, and to Italy. Then the whole sock knitting trend exploded in the UK too. I signed up for a sock- of-the-month club, and a nice woman in Scotland posts a skein of yarn every month. Of course at this point I am years behind in sock production, and my potential wool sock stockpile is a bit massive — but very attractive to admire. Some on-line groups are signing up members to 52-pairs-of-socks-a-year pledges, so I guess I'm not the only one to be over-yarned and under-socked. My goal is 30 pairs so I can wear a different pair everyday for each winter month. I figure they will last me forever then.

The above socks which I wore today are heavy Norwegian Ragg wool bought in Oslo and knit in Hingham nearly two years ago when my grandson Bobs was born. The heavy Ragg wool makes them a bit uncomfortable in shoes, but lovely to wear with slippers around the house.

The cold and snow continues here in the UK with most problems in Scotland and Northern England.  Here in London we seem to be having geographically disproportionate snow accumulations. Our back garden in North London as it was this morning had a little snow cover, and we have had only a few flurries over the day.

Talking to Susan in South London this afternoon, she tells me she is literally snowed in. The snow has fallen non-stop last night and all day today, with accumulation of at least a foot. The trains and buses are not running so she was unable to get to work today. And there seems to be little end to this wintry weather pattern according to the news reports. Visions of Dickens's Christmas Carol and Thomas's Christmas in Wales are dancing in everyone's head!