I do enjoy Christmas these days, but this particular one was sadder than usual. A good friend of my daughters (they went to school together), was killed on 15th December in a hit and run accident, near where he lived, in London. The police are searching for the culprit. The randomness, and the casual cruelty, of just driving off when it must be blindingly obvious you’ve just hit somebody in your car, is hard to stomach.

He spent a lot of time during his teenage years at our house. He was fun, extremely bright, multi-talented, excellent with my girls’ sibling rivalry, very good at defusing potentially awkward situations (just one example -when ED told him, in front of YD, that YD fancied him, he smiled, said Ooh how lovely. Thank you. And so YD stopped writhing with embarrassment and felt good about it).

In recent years his life and my daughters’ lives had taken different paths and we didn’t see so much of him. But we are all so sad. We loved him. He was good, and funny, and kind. But mixed in with the sadness is the awareness of how much worse this is for his immediate family. As a mother I can only begin to imagine how his mother must feel. The world is a lesser place without him. RIP Andy.

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Hubby cooked up a storm yesterday for our Christmas lunch. Absolutely fabulous meal. Mother came, and so did YD, her hubby, and baby ESW, who will be one year old in just over two weeks. Lovely.

Now that some of the knitting has been given to the recipients, here are a few photos of the projects.