I wish it could be Christmas every day...

Well, not really, but it was fun.

Hope yours was too.

As usual, I recorded our family Christmas in a journal prompted by Shimelle whose online classes I can't recommend highly enough.  Not only are they fun to do, one sign up for her "Journal your Christmas" class gets you the prompts for every year after, too.  I think that's a real bargain!  I don't follow the prompts slavishly and don't contribute to the online group at all, but I love to have some framework to hang my thoughts on and this year's photography tips were a useful bonus.

Anyway, thanks Shimelle for another set of brilliant resources and for all the hard work you put into the class.  This one will go on the shelf with the others and will be brought out in a couple of years time, prompting lots of happy memories and a few smiles too.

All is Calm

The fridge is full, the boy is home, we're all set.

Start the jigsaw.

Time to put up those feet and enjoy the holiday.

Here in Gloucestershire, we'll start our celebrations with our usual Christmas Eve cheese fondue this evening.  Have a Happy Christmas, everyone!

Still here....

After such a long blogging break, perhaps some reassurance is needed?  I am still here, just don't seem to have had the chance to do much here recently.  The word busy springs to mind...

We had a great party with our friends last Sunday, however. One of these days I'll find a pig large enough to satisfy all those pork-and-apple-sauce loving party guests...

I had a wonderful afternoon watching our small friend appear as an angel (of course) in her school nativity. 

Our lovely friend Mary has been and gone and we've enjoyed some of our usual haunts, including Daylesford.

We spent a day in Bristol and, not believing the sign advertising Mickey Rooney in pantomime there, just had to book ourselves seats for the matinee to see!  Sure enough, both Mr and Mrs Rooney were in the cast of this fantastic show.  We loved it! 

I met Mary and her colleague Diana and her daughter Katie in London yesterday and enjoyed a couple of thought-provoking exhibitions (Between the Covers and Taking Liberties) before enjoying afternoon tea at the Champagne bar in St Pancras station.  We especially loved the tartan blankets which kept our knees toasty warm!

Drama on the train home.  A lippy rugby supporter sitting in the First Class carriage refused to show his ticket to the guard, who, rather than get into an argument quietly dialled for support.  When we arrived in Swindon, a rather large security guard boarded the train and requested the chap pay up.  When he refused, he was asked to leave the train - which he also refused to do.  At this point, the security chap explained that he was now in danger of paying not only a large penalty fare but also being charged with delaying the train - at £400 per minute...so far, five minutes had passed.  This was no thug but a fairly well dressed, professional looking chap in his 30s who I suspect had a bit too much dutch courage than was good for him.  His friends (who had paid the £10 upgrade to sit in first class) sat and watched horror struck as the situation spiralled out of control.  Eventually, the chap chose to leave the train and was met by a couple of policemen on the platform.  Hmmm.

Drama of a different sort at my work Christmas Lunch last week, when 22 of us walked out of the pub having been served the most horrible food imaginable.  Fortunately the pub opposite was ready and able to cater for such a large bunch of hungry people and whipped up some fantastic turkey sandwiches in no time!

We've had visits from our friends Ilja and Marieke, and lovely concert pianist friend Tra.

We've done all our shopping - presents and food.  Just the last minute Christmas Eve things.

We've had so many lovely cards this year - a bumper year we think.  Much appreciated.

We've both had the lurgy and are (more or less) over it, thank goodness.

The Christmas Journal is on course and progressing well, and the Photo a Day blog has been maintained, believe it or not.  Catching up with the journal this afternoon a small crisis....

I dropped my scalpel on my foot, resulting in a spout of blood...aaaaagh!

Mark came to my rescue, but please note, in spite of all crisis and emergency, photos were taken!!

I'll now limp upstairs and try to recover with a glass of something or other.  I expect I will be ok.

Bristol, 5pm today

Have you ever seen the IKEA checkouts so empty?

St Nikolaus Christmas card workshop

For the first time in 23 years, I didn't make Edward a gingerbread house for St Nikolaus, but supplied it in kit form instead.  When we met him for supper last week, we passed him a box containing all the ingredients: chocolate "cement", chocolate button roof tiles, smarties gravel for the garden, curly wurly fences and the gingerbread house structure itself.  We await a photo of the finished results.

I've spent the day making our Christmas cards.

I gathered a few bits and pieces together, got out my trusty Embellisher and applied it all to a bottle green background - Mark's old NZ wool sweater which I felted in the washing machine.

I cut out small christmas tree shapes from the embellished felt and experimented a bit with sewing them to a card.

Mark One not only took me ages to stitch, it resulted in a rather wonky tree!

Something simpler was called for.  Even so, the challenge of some glittery thread in my sewing machine needed all my resources for dealing with tricky situations like this.

Changing the sewing machine needle for a "Metallica" one with a large eye and longer "scarf" at the back made things rather easier.

Which reminded me: Did you know that the top part of a Schmetz needle box is a small magnifying lens to enable you to read the size and details of a sewing machine needle more easily?

Anyway, here we are at the end of a busy day with just over 100 cards done.  Now we have just to sit and write them...