I have few things left to check off on my list before I can leave (setting snap-traps against the possible Return of Mice, retrieving my little plants from the drying oven, putting the "line dry only" dress that is hanging up to dry in my suitcase, cashing a refund check...)

And then I can go. If all goes as it should, tomorrow night about this time I should be settling down into my compartment-bed on the train, looking out the window into the dark night (punctuated by Christmas lights as we pass through one of the many small towns: that is the best part). And this time Tuesday night I will be at my parents' house.

I have got so many projects packed: Kenobi and Landscape Shawl (hopefully to finish), the socks-in-progress, an unstarted Elefante and the Evolving Punk. And more sockyarn. And the Clapotis I just started. And books - the one on Dirt (The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth), which I just started and which looks really good, and another one on the history of mathematics and its importance to science, and the Pickwick Papers, and Gaudy Night (which seems to me would be good train-reading).

So, to all of you, friends I have met in person, friends I have "met" through e-mails and comments, and friends I haven't really met because they merely lurk, love and joy come to you, and God (or whatever name you prefer to use) send you a happy new year.

And to those who celebrate Christmas, have a blessed Christmas. And to the rest: happy Solstice, or Good Yule, or just, Happy New Year. (Because, if nothing else, you can wish a person a Happy New Year.)

I will be back sometime early in January.