How long does cross-stitch take?

[watervole]

This pattern has around 12,000 stitches. It takes me about five seconds to do one complete cross. In theory, that would complete the pattern in arund 17 hours. Plainly, this is not the case, so where does the time go?

There's a load of time spend sorting threads and threading neadles. There's also a lot of time spent checking against the chart and occasional time spent unpicking...

I've now completed around a tenth of the pattern. (and am listening to Lord of the Rings while working. We're just approaching Isengard) The current rate of progress seems unlikely to last - I've never done so much in so short a time before (though I do now have a daylight bulb in my desk lamp), but if anyone else wants to guess when I'll finish it, place your bets at sweepstake