yarn along: morning tea and sock knitting

i sat down this morning with christmas cookies, a homemade french chocolate and earl grey tea and some sock knitting. 

i've been reading the shepherd's life, (new york times review) by james rebanks. i received it just a few days ago from my good friend janet for christmas. (we finally had our christmas gift get together.) i actually find it difficult to put down as it describes life in the lake country in england and what it is like for a family to have been shepherds and farmers for generations. the author talks about the choices his grandfather made and how it has shaped his present world and how he sees the land that has been farmed by his family and neighbors for hundreds of years. for a long time outsiders assumed that the young people growing up would want to leave for better jobs, but for many of them there was no better job than that which was connected with the earth and the animals and a way of living that rolled on from generation to generation:

"it was clear from his stories that we were part of a tradition, that long pre-dated us, and would long exist after us. the stories left you feeling proud to be part of that tradition, but very aware that as individuals we were bound by duty to carry it on, bound to try and live by those values. his main lesson was above all to get along with people; don't burn your bridges or they will stay down for a long time. having the same families live and work alongside each other for many centuries created a unique kind of society with special values . . in my grandfather's world, a person's life was not a thing of his own invention, a new thing on a blank slate. we are bound by our landscape. shaped by it. defined by it. like all good grandparents my grandfather could only see the best in me, and that always made me stand a little taller." (pages 79 - 80)

and this part i found particularly poignant:

"as soon as i could toddle i'd be packed into granddad's land rover and we would go off to do a job on the farm. my mother would be left fretting whether i'd be properly looked after, and about what he would feed me. for some reason i never figured out, my grandddad always called us 'us two old men.'"
'us two old men will go and get them sheep.'"
" . . . each year i found myself a little stronger, and able to lift the bales [of hay that they would bring in from the fields] a little higher, while my grandfather grew weaker. his sense of decline was only eased by the pride he had in me, his grandson, growing up to take his place. as a child i had rolled bales to his knees, thinking i was helping, and carried his bottle of cold tea from heap to heap, wishing i were as strong as him. each year the balance between us altered in my favour. then we reached a curious halfway point where we worked as equals when i was about thirteen years old, but i quickly agreed each time he suggested that 'us two old men' ought to stop 'for our pipe' (neither of us smoked.) the next year i was much stronger than him and pretended i needed to stop every now and then, so he could rest. a couple of years after that he was following me around the field, rolling bales to my knees for me to life, and lifting an odd one when he could." (pages 63 - 76)

the sock i'm knititng is a basic ann budd pattern with la bien aimée yarn in happy feet.

joining ginny and friends . .