Category Archives: Christmas

Mid November Cheerfulness


What do you think of that for an Autumnal photo?  Albertine usually only does her stuff, very spectacularly, for three weeks in June!  She’s a little confused!

It’s been a little hectic this week, and again I’ve had moments of ‘Humph, what is there to be cheerful about?’ but it’s always there when you look for it.

We had a bit of worry over my mum.  She struggles heroically with all sorts of health issues and keeps amazingly positive but this week new pills rendered her a bit more wobbly than usual and for the first time she had to use her alarm necklace and we had a call to rescue her.  She’s less than a mile away so we were there within minutes to find that she had gently capsized rather than fallen, and had only damaged her dignity.  It was so fortunate that Tim was home though as I could never have got her off the floor single handedly and probably would have had to call the emergency services.  Knowing  my mum, she’d have said, ‘Ooh, lovely, firemen!’

So for a couple of days I’ve been going round every couple of hours but now the doctor has been and the pills sorted out we are back to normal for the moment.  Such a worry though.

Any way, The sun’s been shining through the last remaining cherry leaves this morning…

I think over the next week the rest of the leaves will be down, but there’s been a lovely sparkly carpet for a small dog to rush about on!…

If you look in the top left hand corner of the first Higgins photo you’ll see my  Drummer Boy rose which is still blooming too…

I rescued it from the ‘Nearly Dead’ bin at the local garden centre some years ago and it has been gratefully flowering every year since!  And talking of buying plants, I was very happy to find hyacinths to buy at the Farmers Market last Saturday.

You might remember last winter I had these…

…and now I have these to look forward too…


This morning Selvedge arrived…

Which has gone into the pile with Country Living…


…and Country Homes and Interiors…

…to be read, sometime, when I’m not wielding a a red hot felting needle!

Which reminds me.  Thank you for all the suggestions which were made about listing the Felty Balloons on Folksy.  I’ve taken them all on board, but I think I will wait now until after the Pick’n’Mix Market which is in 10 days time.  It would be rather lovely if I don’t have any left to list, wouldn’t it? We’ll see!

Yesterday afternoon I went out to the studio with express intention of have a good tidy up, walked in, spotted a particular piece of fleece, had a brainwave and ended up needlefelting again!  But it was very productive, because I made this little chap…

I thought if he had a couple of brothers, they could go carol singing, and here they are!  This one has the music…

…this one rings the bell…

…and this one knows all the words!

They are quite wee, just over 2″ tall, and look SO cute on the mantlepiece. However, I will be sensible, and they ARE for sale! (Ed. to add: and were sold, the very next day! Another reason to be cheerful!)

I hope that you too have found some ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’  even if you felt it’s been a tricky week so far.  And I hope too that you’ll be able to join in with the ‘Linky’ so that we can spread a little happiness about.  I’ve really enjoyed popping off to other blogs,  and sharing the cheerfulness.  I’ve decided to start the Linky slightly earlier, Wednesday afternoon rather than Thursday morning to give as much time as possible for people to find it and join in and so here it is!

See you soon xx


Searching for Reasons to be Cheerful…

I have to admit to having to look really hard this week for any cheerfulness at all!  It’s entirely weather related, and I’m sorry to be so feeble.  I haven’t coped at all with the heavy layer of cloud which has been sitting on top of our little corner of Norfolk, my mother describes it as being inside a Tupperware box with the lid on…

But this morning, hooray… after a gloomy start the clouds started to break…

and as the weather lifted, so did my spirits…

and of course there are reasons to be cheerful!

The very first one must be the wonderful response that I had from my last post about Team Hannah which you can read in the comments there.  I know Hannah has been very appreciative and if you go to the Team Hannah website you will see the amount raised is moving steadily up, although there is still along way to go.   Its very uplifting to find out how many kind and caring people are out there.

I’ve been beavering away making Christmas decorations for the Pick’n’Mix Makers Market which is not far away now, and as part of my stall I have bought a Christmas Tree, which is …whisper it….up my studio with decorations on it!!!!!  In November!!! Very scary!  I’m not going to frighten you with pictures of the tree, but just a little peek…

Coming on nicely I think, and out on my walk this afternoon there was holly…

and ivy…

…so I’m really getting into the spirit of things!

Out in the garden, there are still a few brave plants doing their thing.  the Welsh Poppy…

…and these little blue flowers which normally flower in late Spring whose name escapes me for the moment…

…and the Eden rose.

This isn’t a rose I would really recommend as it has these spectacular heavy blooms on spindly weak stems so it’s very droopy, and the roses easily rot in wet weather.  but they do last for ages as a cut flower, and it’s trying awfully hard to do its stuff at the moment!

I also found this dear little bird feeder in our little market town this morning which I hope the birds will discover soon…

…and it cost £3!! I couldn’t believe it!

Well I’ve certainly exceeded my three reasons this week, and I haven’t even come to the one which cheered me up no end last night.  I won something!!  Such a surprise.  Wendy over on 1st Unique Gifts had a giveaway draw, and despite having 72 participants, I won one of Wendy’s brilliant clocks.  And it’s SO appropriate!

Isn’t it great!

So what are your Reasons to be Cheerful this week?  Can you share them so that if like me, someone is having fit of the winter glums we can visit your blog for a little happy moment.  Just add yourself to the Linky at the bottom of this post and then we can find you, and if you don’t have a blog do join in via the comments.  I love to hear from you…

I’ll leave you with another beautiful Winter Sky…

See you soon x


A New Year Gift…

….to celebrate my 150 Blog Post!   I can’t believe it’s come round so quickly…

Anyway, a belated Happy New Year to you all, thank you for visiting.  I’m sorry to have been away so long but there have been guests, invited and uninvited.  No-one invited flu of the Swinish persuasion, but he came anyway and laid several of our party low, and as I write the smallest one is still very poorly.  We’re all sending get well wishes southwards  as hard as we can, here in Norfolk.

So, not many photos at the moment, and not enough to join in with Emma’s Splash of Colour today, maybe tomorrow.

Higgins had a lovely time with all the people to cuddle him, he makes an excellent hot water bottle!  He wore his hat…

….for at least 20 seconds.  Ate his Father Christmas toy so fast I didn’t get a chance to photograph it, called a Christmas truce with Henry…

…and then dragged a cushion under the dining table to sleep off his own Christmas dinner while we ate ours.

Anyway, the giveaway.  Are you all decorationed out, or would you like something towards Christmas 2011 to hang on your tree?  I have been needlefelting again, this time Christmas baubles and I have made a very special one to share with you, and for one lucky person to win. 

The bauble is 5″ from the top wooden bead to the bottom bead,that’s  just under 13cm,  is made from my hand dyed Merino and Blue-Face Leicester fleece and is completely unique. (‘cos I hate to repeat myself!)

To win it, just leave a comment on this post, all the names will go into the hat and Higgins will decide the lucky winner by eating drawing the winning name.  the plan had been to draw it on Twelth Night but because I’m so late, I will let it run until next Monday, the 10th.

Even if you’ve never commented before, please do, it would be lovely to hear from you x

Merry Christmas to all….

Well here it is…Christmas Eve.  I have Nine Lessons and Carols on as I type, ‘Once in Royal David’s City’…

This won’t be a long post.  I haven’t time to write it really, and I’m sure you won’t have time to read!  I just wanted to share a few photos and thoughts before the big day. The snow has mostly gone now, but it has been beautiful…

Higgins has loved his walks, it might be cold but he’s not wading through mud…

I finished the last bit of pre-Christmas preparation a little while ago and iced the Christmas cake.  It was a little problematic as my eggs were bigger than Delia’s and my royal icing was rather sloppy, even after flinging in the last dregs of all the icing sugar in the house.  I spent quite a while scooping up what was running down the sides and returning it to the top until it started to set.  Not my finest acheivement, visually, but I don’t suppose it will affect the taste!

There something familiar about a small figure dressed in red surrounded by snow don’t you think?

It only remains to say,  have a very Merry Christmas all you lovely people out there in Blogland,  the ones who have faithfully left the comments which mean so much and to the other readers I haven’t met yet, maybe next  year?  It’s been such fun to meet you on line, and also in real life, lots of love from Higgins and me xxx

P.S. I have some photos borrowed from my sister which made me laugh so much I can’t resist passing them on to all for a Christmas giggle…

…and finally…

(no Higgins…I tried, he ate the hat!)

Mince Pies!

I’ve left it so late for this!  Do you want to be making mince pies on Christmas Eve?  Go on, you know you do… Radio 4 at 3pm…Nine Lessons and Carols and the smell of baking.  The start of Christmas…

  • 750g sweet shortcrust pastry ( I actually used 125g butter, 50g caster sugar, 250g plain flour, 1 egg yolk + 2 /3 tbsp water and it was just enough rolled out very thin!)
  • large jar of good mincemeat
  • 200g unsalted butter
  • 200g caster sugar
  • 200g ground almonds
  • 50g plain flour
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 tbsp brandy
  • flaked almonds
  1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
  2. Grease three 12 hole tart tins. Roll out pastry thinly and cut 36 rounds of pastry to line tins. Leave to rest in fridge while you make the frangipagne.
  3. Beat the butter until soft. Beat in the sugar until pale and fluffy and then beat in the eggs. Mix in the flour and ground almonds with  the brandy.
  4. Half fill the pastry cases with mincemeat and then spoon a heaped teaspoon of frangipagne over the top over each one. Smooth it over and sprinkle with flaked almonds.
  5. Bake for about 20 – 25 mins until golden brown. Serve warm sprinkled with icing sugar.

These are light and moist and even non mince pie eaters profess to love them.  I don’t know who to credit with the recipe as I picked it up last Christmas and have forgotten where, but I am happy to pass it on!

Snowy Walks and Marzipan

At last, I’m sitting at the computer with enough time to have a little chat.  I can’t believe how this week has flown by and now the Christmas counter is saying seven days, just 7 days to go. I think I’m pretty organised, despite the odd gasp of dismay as I realise something I’ve forgotten.  If we get snowed in before I get to the shops I can rustle up most of the Christmas dinner, but I’m really hoping I can get to a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream!  Mind you, if we do get snowed in, I’ll have masses to eat, ‘cos it’ll just be me, Higgins and Henry!  Please can everyone send up a little prayer for Tim to get home from work safely on Tuesday?

I popped into Norwich on Wednesday  for a tidy up at the hairdressers and to finish the Christmas shopping and have to show you how pretty Norwich Arcade is looking for Christmas.

Higgins and I went for a very chiily walk while we waited for the promised snow to arrive, at least the going underfoot was firm but I do feel sorry for Higgin’s little tum being so quite close to the ground!

It’s times like this I realise how little Higgins is.  Everytime I try to photograph him when we are out walking I look at the picture and he’s just a little spot in the middle!

Once we back home and the fire stoked up there was present wrapping to do. I had planned to use brown paper and red raffia, but then I went to ‘Glory Days’ and found this…

…which took me straight back to childhood Christmases – and it still looks good with red raffia.  I didn’t have any labels which matched, but with a little help from the scanner and Photoshop I came up with these…

I made a little stocking too, using some of the pretty trimmings bought at ‘The Owl and Sewing Cat’, and a bell from one of last years chocolate reindeer!

Outside though, something was happening…

…And we popped out to see if it came up to Higgins’ knees…

We certainly haven’t had that much snow here in Norfolk but it’s very cold and it’s so beautiful.  Another walk for Higgins and me this morning…

Higgins, once I’ve dug him out of the bottom of his bed, really enjoys a romp in the snow…

After all the fun outside I had a date in the kitchen with the Christmas cake. It occurred to me that if I didn’t get some marzipan on it PDQ I’d be icing on Christmas day. Anyone else made their own marzipan this year? I think I did years ago and don’t remember having to beat it for twelve minutes over simmering water and then over cold water until it was cold. Thank goodness for the food mixer!  I then moved on to the Frangipane Mince pies which are delicious but I can’t photograph them until the morning hopefully brings more light. So more of these, and the recipe next time.

Heavens, look at the time!  I must away and make up the fire and get ready for ‘Strictly Come Dancing!    Tomorrow I have Christmas bunting to make and I have to look for a saw so I can pot the Christmas tree…

See you soon, keep warm x

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...