HARMLESS ELF

The ten year old was interested to see I was knitting an elf:

'But he has no arms!'

'Well the pattern didn't include arms'

'Elves are supposed to make presents, how can it do it without arms?'

'Sorry about that.  I am afraid he is an Armless Elf'

'Granny, you could use the instructions for the legs and just make them shorter and with elbows.'

"I'm not sure I could do that.  I mean, I could maybe do arms, but c'mon, must it have elbows?'

"Oh, but you could, Granny, you are so clever at stuff like that.'

I'm a sucker for praise.  Out come the knitting needles again...sigh. 

We made elves, we made felted penguin babies and we made Christmas cookies for the Canadians.  

Oh, and just so you don't think we had too easy a day, I also spend an hour in the filthy, mouse dropping infested crawl space under the eaves, tracing leaks , strategically placing  basins and praying Brian the roofer will come on Monday.  We seem to spend a lot of time and money on the leaking sieve that is our 170 year old roof.  Time to get it replaced?  But can we find enough Ballachulish slates?

All of this activity ought to have been sufficient balm for an aching heart.  but just in case, we rounded  the day off with a home delivery Italian meal for two.