Advent

I spent the weekend with Jo and Chris in Cirencester and had a great time! We spent most of Saturday doing Christmassy stuff: making saffron scones, crocheting Christmas tree decorations, knitting slippers (once washed went all fleecey!), making a Christmas tree and cooking Swedish Christmas food.

Today I have spray painted the tree green and put added lights and some nice staw decorations and its lighting up the conservatory. And Chris gave me a light thingy so I could hang my cool black paper star in the bedroom window. V nice. Oh and my advent pig (Lisa Larsson) is lit on the mantle piece with two nice bit poinsettas framing the fire place.

I have photo evidence of the weekend and will post them all for you to admire as soon as I can find the loader thingy.

Oh How We Laughed

Barb and I went and saw 'Far from the maddning crowd' yesterday at Brighton Royal Theater. Neither of us had read the book so we had little idea what it would be like. Judging from the rest of the audience the book must be a classic as the theater was full of old people and student looking kids who were probably trying to get out of reading the book.

Anyhoo - the play is set in the West Country and all the actors did a Dick van Dyke West Country accent that did go quite on my nerves. And I think the cut quite big chunks out of the book to make it fit into a couple of hours, so at times it was a bit confusing.

Overall it was very enjoyable and we did laugh a lot.

Now off to Cirencester!

Cold

It was 12 degrees in the bedroom this morning when I got up. I sleep very well in the cold but its hard to get up.

I am not going to change the heating settings to make it warmer cause I am sure this winter lark will just be temporary and soon it will be around 10 degrees again. And I cant have this changing the heating settings every other day. So I will add an extra quilt, make sure my fluffy slippers are just by the bed and the towel on the heated towel rail in preparation for the morning shower.

And I am sure its good for you (somehow) with the cold. It sure makes me appreciate the hot shower so much more. I am so so so glad we dont have a bath tub, a nice enclosed shower cubicle thingy is the way forward. But I wish we had underfloor heating in the bathroom.

Wish list

A asked me to write down what I want for Christmas so here goes.

Three hard presents:
The latest Pratchett
The latest Gaiman
Peter Greenaway DVDs

Three soft presents:
The credit crunch/recession to be less hard hitting than we all fear it will.
Jodie to be the surprise winner of Strictly.
New jimjams

Three important presents:
Terry Pratchett to get better so he can write lots more books.
Neil Gaiman to write more books, maybe another one with Terry.
Charlaine Harris to speed up her writing of the Sookie books.

EL & B - what do you want?

Bless the weather

Its cold and wet outside and I am indoors finishing the Stephanie Meyer series EL tipped me off on a few weeks back. I was supposed to read the first three books slowly over the next few weeks and then borrow EL's copy of the 4th. But of course that didnt work. Read book one last week, book two on Friday, book three yesterday and book four (which I bought yesterday) today.

I was planning to get some bulbs and plant out this weekend but its raining so I am not going to be able to. Aaaah, what a shame...

At least I have done most of my Christmas shopping. Met B in town yesterday and sorted out a few more presents, in between lunch at MoshiMoshi, free chocolate from Hotel Chocolate and Montezuma and general catching up.

Terry and Aled

Go Terry and Aled! Defitnitely a Christmas nr 1 black horse. They just need to set it up so we can download it. Chris loves it. I love it. And I am sure everyone else will love it too!

Parampampampam.

Gardening gnomes

JD has been home since Wednesday night which is lovely! We decided to 'winter' the garden front and back today and I again was reminded of why I shouldnt have a bigger garden. JD did most of the work, I spent most of the time thinking maybe we should just get a gardner.

We went to the tip with one round of garden waste and have bagged another that we will take over there tomorrow. Its looking better out there, but not perfect. But I am bored with it now so this is as good as it gets for the winter.

Unsociable

I have had an unsociable weekend. I have only spoken to about 5 people in total, and most of these conversations consisted of 'This one please' and 'Thank you'

Today I went to B&Q and got a spray paint gloss (!) which I have used to gloss two out of 4 chairs. It stinks but oh its quick. Will do the other two + a second coating in a few weeks.

I made coq au vin on Thursday night and have eaten it through the weekend, it just gets better. I added spelt towards the end so it became kind of a spelt risotto coq au vin. Oh so handy as I like one pot cooking.

Today I made cardamom buns as well, mmmm. And I finished the beret. Hmm... this time the needle was too big so its more like a big untidy hat than a beret. Am not sure if I can be bothered with a third attempt.

Farmers markets

Went to the farmers market in Shoreham today. And funnily enough quite a lot of stalls were the same as in Lewes last week. Wonder if there is a price difference?

The one stand Lewes didnt have is the Teddy's cafe cake stand. The best cakes in the world. I bought a slice of ginger and rhubarb cake - sponge cake with ginger icing and rhubarb cream in the middle. Veeeery nice.

I also got two dozen free range eggs and some free range pork chops. Lovely.

Oh and I love our wool shop. I have passed it so many times but this is the first time I have been inside. I bought some needles and am definetly going back. My grown up sized beret is coming along a treat!

Am trying hard

I am trying to learn how to crochet. Hils at work has told me that its easy. And I have lots of books with instructions and also some wool and crochet needles. So should be a doodle.

I have so far crocheted a couple of 'trial patches' to check that I have the right size needle and woold. Boooooring! So I decided to go straight for a beret!

And I have made one. Its black, doesnt look too bad. I by mistake changed pattern midway but it still looks fine. If you are 5 years and have a small head. Could probably also fit a smaller child. But black berets on smaller babies require a brave parent.

Anyway, I am off to the wool shop tomorrow to pick up some bigger crochet needles and possibly some more wool. Can you have too much wool? I think not.

Bring on Strictly! Its Crochet time.

November the miserable

Skin thingy was fine. Of course I have ruined my skin with too much sun bathing blablabla. But she didnt try and sell me lots of expensive treatments and stuff so I am quite pleased. Spend £10 in total on products and got some freebees. Not bad.

But getting to and from the session was horrid. On Saturday it was pissing down here, and although the walk from the station to Sk:n is only just 5-10 min I was soaking by the time I got there. My trusty Berghaus jacket was dripping. No fun.

And Monday was no more fun here, so grey that it felt like the day never really started. Miserably miserable. So I am working from home today to cheer myself up. Its nice.