Socks and a Failed Coup

I am still in a sock knitting frenzy. I finished this pair for myself at the weekend - the wavy cable pattern doesn't show up well in the picture, unfortunately. I love this red and green stripy yarn, which is West Yorkshire Spinners Holly Berry. Now I am working on a pair for M, and I am already past the heel of the first sock, despite having to unravel three inches of leg when I realised I had made a mistake in the pattern. The sock knitting should slow down a bit as one of my Christmas presents was the yarn for Attic 24's new blanket crochet-a-long which starts tomorrow. I love crocheting blankets in winter. It just feels cosy! 

This morning we all worked, or in TG's case did school-at-home. The school is providing a fuller  programme this time round, with more online lessons and working to their normal timetable. H is about to start her first audit busy season. Over the next couple of months she is likely to be working very long hours - perhaps not so bad at the moment when there are so many restrictions on what she can do outside of work! M is waiting to hear when he will be expected to return to work, post-vaccination. We expect it to be over the next week or two. 

Before starting work I caught up on the news from the US about Trump's attempted coup. It seems to me it deserves the name "coup" as he was clearly trying to encourage his supporters to use force in an attempt to overturn the election result. I have a high enough opinion of American democracy to think that it was bound to fail, as indeed it did, but it does show the amount of damage he has done in peddling his myth of a fraudulent election to people who want to believe him. However, I think it has done more than anything else could to alienate many of the Republican politicians who have enabled Trump over the past four years, and that may well put paid to any attempt by him to win a second term in 2024. 

It was cold and murky today, and we couldn't face more mud, so just did a couple of miles around the local streets for our walk. I did spot this impressive fungus on an old tree stump. I ordered some grass-fed meat from a different source to my usual one to try - this company has a regular subscription option that I think might work for us. I am still trying to buy ethically produced meat as much as possible, despite it being more expensive. Apparently in the UK we tend to buy cheap food rather than good quality food, whereas elsewhere in Europe the balance is the other way round. I am trying to re-educate myself. I used a portion of diced chicken to make a chicken and mushroom pie, with mashed potatoes, roasted squash and broccoli for dinner.