Christmas

Boris outdid himself, creating a massive carved shoe rack for Jo and dragging home an immense lathe for me. The stand is impressive, with cast iron legs linked by huge threaded rods running through steel pipes. He put it together in the tractor shed, and there it is. Most of it seems to be pieced together out of various pieces of steel stock--though the legs bear the name "Allen" and seem the right dimensions for a lathe stand. About the rest, I'm not so sure. Boris reports that it spun a two-by-four lustily, and then flung it across the room.

As I left the shed, I was startled to find the upper storey of the house illuminated as though by a spotlight. Against a sombre sky, the setting sun was striking upwards.

It lit up the tops of the elm and the larches, leaving the pines strikingly dark beneath them. As always, it was a fleeting effect, largely vanishing before I could dig out my camera.