Hand knitted socks

exquisitely well made with love and care....I can scarcely believe I am the recipient of these.
Now, I can knit socks. I have knitted socks. I could probably knit a pair of plain socks without a pattern but I cannot knit socks like these.
They are a belated birthday present from a friend, a friend who is not at all well and who struggled to make them because of arthritis and a shoulder injury.  She wanted to make me those socks and, although it took her time she did.
Her knitting is still very, very good. I will never be able to graft the toes the way she does. Her cast on edge is smooth and elastic. The heels of her socks are reinforced.  
These socks last.
The Senior Cat has several pairs knitted by the same person. He worries they will "wear out". It isn't likely that he will outlast the socks because he does not move far these days but I know they remind him of the comfort of his mother's socks. 
His mother's socks were only ever plain grey or black for men. I don't think any other colours were available. Now you can get sock wool in every colour under the sun...and sock  yarn in things other than wool. The socks he worries about wearing out are still sober shades of grey and blue but they are variegated as well. The Senior Cat wriggles his toes into them and says, "Comfort."
Yes, comfort. I remember the socks my paternal grandmother knitted for us as children. I had white socks for Sundays and pale brown socks for school. My brother had long grey socks because small boys wore shorts back then. My sisters had pink socks for Sundays. (Grandma knew I didn't like pink. Unlike my maternal grandmother she never made me anything in the colour  pink.)  
When commercial school socks became readily available we no longer had  hand knitted socks. I almost forgot the comfort of them as I moved through my teen years and struggled with stockings and "suspender belts". (These were never highly successful. I fell over too often - something which does increase the likelihood of holes and ladders. My mother would get angry and dock my already limited pocket money.)
And then I knitted myself a pair of socks. I used the first pair as bed socks because I had no idea how to "graft" the toes...and there was no You Tube to help. We were living too far from Grandma for her to show me too.
The second pair of socks might have been the same but I was at boarding school in the city by then and spending precious weekends with my grandparents who needed help. I loved doing that and Grandma rewarded me with lessons on how to turn the heel properly and how to graft the toe. She would shake her head slightly over the latter and say, "Do the best you can child. It needs to be smooth or it will worry your feet."
I wore the socks at weekends.
And so it went on. I have never made myself enough socks. I should make more - and not just for me. The friend who made these socks knows that I still find knitting socks more awkward than knitting other things. She has made socks for me before.
My friend keeps notes. She knows exactly how many rounds to do for me after the heels and before the toes.
I slid my feet in last night - just for a moment. They will be warm and oh so comfortable. I mentally purred over them. I was reminded of Pablo Neruda's poem "Ode to my socks".  Yes, they are something special.
But it isn't just the socks. It is that every stitch in them was a present to me. They are made with care -and, above all else, love.