I know, I know. It looks like just another stack of papers on a desk. Nothing at all remarkable about it. But I'll have you know that this is a copy-edited manuscript, 484 pages of it, 148,596 words of it, and that I have completely finished reading every word, and correcting quite a few.
Which doesn't mean that I haven't missed 
some. Of course I have, and so has the copy editor. But we didn't actually miss them, you see. We've left them on the page, intentionally, carefully scattered here and there, for you to find. And we've been especially careful to leave errors in the Latin, just so you can have the fun of discovering them and pointing them out to your friends. (No, of course you wouldn't do that, would you? I didn't think so.)
Anyway, it's done, and my hat's off to the copy editor, Pamela Barricklow, who did a truly heroic job on this book. I hope she got paid by the hour or by the pound, and not by the job. This one was a doozy. The book was actually pretty clean, but she still had to check all that Latin and those weird plant spellings and the quantities in the recipes and all the things that drive copy editors over the brink of an early grave. Thank you, Pam. You have earned a friend for life. And you, gentle reader, when you pick up this book and notice one or two of the deliberate errors that Pam and I have left on these pages, you may smile and nod and read on, knowing that we did it just for you.
Pretty feet. The feet are Peggy's, who (can you believe this?) has never before owned a pair of handknitted socks! The wool (merino) is KnitPick's SockGarden, Geranium, on #1 needles. These were my first slip-stitch heels, and I have fallen in love with them and intend to knit no other heels for the rest of my natural life.
And now, if you will excuse me, I am going to go and read the chapter on socks in Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's new book, Knitting Rules, which arrived today, full of wise, insightful observations. This one, for instance: Skeins of sock yarn are small enough that many hundreds may be squirreled away in your home without revealing the true scope of your addiction. Look for discreet, infrequently visited locations. . . . the pockets of luggage, tucked inside a gravy boat, behind books on bookshelves, or in the extra space in the corners of the guest-room pillowcases.
What I want to know, Stephie, is how you managed to look in my gravy boat, especially since I hid the thing on the very top shelf of the dish cupboard, where it is covered with a wooly blanket of dust.
Reading Note. Again, from Stephanie:
The great irony about knitting books is that the more you buy, the closer you come to the day when you've learned so much that you will no longer need them. (Not a chance, Stephie! At least, not your knitting books.)