January - part seven. Seven!

Taking the decorations down. Yes, I know it should have been yesterday (or even the day before according to who you listen to), but I can guarantee that if some piece of bad luck befalls me this year I won't be clutching my forehead and wailing 'Oh no, why did I leave those decorations up a day (or possibly two) too long!'

Everything looks a bit more spacious now. I love it when the tree is up but it takes up space and blocks access to a bookcase so a few weeks is enough really. And actually I love packing the baubles away, wrapping them up in kitchen paper and taping up the boxes to keep them safe until next year. The kids are back at school tomorrow and it's time to get settled into a routine again. Part of me thinks 'bleurgh' at the thought of it but the slightly more sensible part of me recognises that we need it!

making a festive effort!

The December frenzy happened again - no matter how organised I intend to be it never quite works out like that. Oh well..

The picture is from a trip to the farm at Kittochside (the Museum of Rural Life) at the beginning of the month and is about the most festive thing I can find among my photos. Actually I love that tree - very simple and lovely. It's just a shame it was the middle of the day so the lights don't really stand out!

Oh, here, I've found a festive alpaca from the same day:

Now that I'm finally blogging I find I can't think of anything to say - I've been busy but it's all been boring stuff (work, PTA, shopping, that kind of thing) which I wouldn't bore myself with, let alone anybody else. I do however have some yarn from that very alpaca (can't remember her name but it's on the ballband) which I intend to cast on, for a hat probably, very soon. I've been trying to take a picture of the yarn since that day but I've never remembered in daylight.

Right, I'm off - I've got three things left to wrap, a card to deliver, and clean bedding to put on the bed.  Have a good time everybody!

Fresh air

We made it - after all the chaos and the rushing around, yesterday we just chilled out. The kids don't get up obscenely early on Christmas morning and never have, thank goodness. The Boy woke at his usual time (seven-ish) and was stoatin' about wondering what to do, and the rest of us drifted downstairs eventually, Miss M last.

As usual Miss M was comically slow at opening her presents, hugging things that particularly delighted her in a slightly bonkers but endearing way. The kids chucked the wrapping-paper everywhere and there seemed to be vast amounts, but when we came to tidy up and sort the recyclable from the un- there wasn't that much really. I'm not going to think about how long it took me to wrap it all (especially the little fiddly things in their stockings) or how short a time it took to tear the whole lot off...

And I've learned not to bother trying to wrap things too neatly for children, it's not as if they even notice!

Meanwhile Stealth Cat was in his tunnel grabbing at pieces of wrapping paper and ribbon and having a brilliant time.

The weather was cool but bright, and in the afternoon Miss M and I went out for a walk. The kids had watched both parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on DVD and Miss M needed to recover from the trauma of the death of Dobby, always her favourite character, and I just needed fresh air. 

Today was cool again and foggy, quite calming really, so Miss M and My Beloved walked to the supermarket for one or two things, and then later on the Boy and I went for a walk out of the edge of town.

The Boy was amused at the way the power lines just vanish in the fog:

This reminded me of a book I read as a kid - something about two children going up a tower (possibly Blackpool Tower) in the fog and then the fog magically freezes and they can't get back down so they set off across the frozen fog, using their Lancashire clogs as skates. I haven't the foggiest (hoho) what it was called but it's an image that's stuck in my mind for years. If anyone knows what it was called please tell me, Googling hasn't helped, and I'm really curious now.

There was a crow (or corvid of some kind) in a tree carking at us:
  

Later still I took Miss M out to the playpark again (that's three days in a row - she's hooked on the new climbing frame) and while we were there the streetlights came on, looking ridiculously golden and sunny:

I know this is all quite dull, but quite often we're hardly outside at all at Christmas and I hardly ever have outside photos from Christmas Day, so it's really a reminder to myself of a surprisingly outdoorsy (in small amounts) festive season!

Tradition

It has become a kind of tradition that on Christmas Eve I take the kids out for a walk in the (vain) hope that they'll burn off some energy. Traditionally too the walk starts with some fairly epic moaning about not wanting to go for a walk, it's too cold and why do we have to?  And culminates with races to the next lamp-post and back, and aww, do we have to go back in? (Yes, it's starting to rain). New for this year was a not entirely successful attempt on Miss M's part to jump a puddle, and a stop at the nearby play-park which has a new climbing-frame. Hence the muddy ankles being at eye-level.

After that I locked myself in the bedroom with wrapping paper, scissors, sellotape, and the radio tuned to Classic FM. This is way better than my previous tradition of panic-wrapping after midnight. I have even, in a fit of enthusiasm (and the certainty that I won't wish to wrap anything on Boxing Day) wrapped presents for our niece and nephew even though we won't see them until Saturday. Dedication!

Oh, the weird glowing white thing is an owl. It doesn't photograph very well.

So here we are then. I hope everybody enjoys the festivities!

Solsticeness

Ooooh, here I am, on my computer! I don't seem to have much 'real' computer time at all recently - my tablet is excellent for any number of things, but blog-writing is not really one of them. Or any kind of writing really - brief note-taking and the odd tweet or Facebook status is about my level. It is completely brilliant for storing knitting patterns and OU resources though. Hmm. So anyway here I am with some actual uninterrupted time on the 'puter - well, possibly uninterrupted. The cats are getting that look in their eyes that suggests they think they should have been fed some time ago ('just five minutes, cats, honest...').

I think I'll summarise December - but just the nice bits, not the crazed, wild-eyed, 'how many things have I got to remember?' bits. It's been a bit frenetic, but there have been moments.

1. I have been knitting on and off, so the picture above is of the provisional cast-on for my second sock - thank you Annie, and also Sue whose great mind thunk alike, for suggesting the COWYAK cast-on! It worked a treat except that next time I'll use a smoother waste yarn to make the unravelling a bit easier. The one I had to hand was a bit grippy and reluctant to let go, but it was still way easier than the provisional cast-on for the first sock! I haven't actually looked at the sock in a few days come to think of it. The heel is turned and I'm on the home straight but there is a discrepancy in the numbers - one needle is a stitch short - and I don't want to continue until I've thoroughly checked there's not a dropped stitch anywhere. I may just have accidently done a k2tog somewhere, but I need decent daylight to check (rolls on floor laughing - in December?!).

2. Chocolate coins looking gorgeous! Mostly consumed now, but very pretty while they lasted - I loved those foil colours!

3. Miss M made melting snowman biscuits at school (digestive biscuit with icing on it and then a marshmallow stuck on top). In a moment of rare sibling amity she made the second one for her brother. He was pretty stunned, it has to be said, but delighted.

4. Chocolate advent calendar! I'm such a child. This is a posh chocolate calendar I bought as a reward to myself for getting my first OU assignment done with minimal fuss and panic. The chocolate is very dark and very nice, but as we've been watching a lot of Doctor Who recently every time I get one of these angels I see it as a weeping angel. I'll probably start thinking Rudolf is a Cyberman next..

5. A winter walk with Miss M. This was yesterday afternoon as it was getting dark. The wind had dropped a bit and I was desperate for a bit of fresh air after going to the supermarket (not as nightmarish as it might have been but the supermarket on a Saturday is never a bundle of laughs). We weren't out all that long but even a short walk can clear out the cobwebs pretty well.

6. And finally, a snowflake decoration hanging from a light fitting. I only hung it up there as a temporary measure but actually I think it'll stay there now. It swings around at every little breeze (e.g. Miss M running beneath it) and is quite soothing to watch. Oh, it's not home-made by the way, I got it from Sainsburys, but it's a concertina thing so I could probably make something approximating it. I might do that. Ah, it'll be a laugh.  (I'm hearing that in the voice of Father Dougal. Worrying).

School has finished now so we can have a bit of a lie-in, and although I know that won't actually happen, just knowing that there's the possibility of a lie-in is wonderful, and at least I won't be running around making packed lunches or finding lunch money or having someone tell me five minutes before we leave the house that they need to take a bit of tinsel into school.  Bliss!

Day 1: Still no flying cars.

There for your perusal is the Hogmanay onion-skin-and-daffodil dyed wool. 

As ever, a yellowy shade is almost impossible to photograph - in reality this one is rather more mustardy and rather less pleasant. However as a contrast colour in some kind of colourwork I think it'll work quite well. Maybe some stripes would look good. Hmm. I sometimes think I spend more time planning (or just day-dreaming about) future knitting projects than actually knitting them. This is completely normal, isn't it?

Today we have continued with our strategy of lazing around doing not much, which is quite nice, though the kids are possibly going a bit stir crazy. Certainly the bicker-o-meter went up a few notches today!

And I finally got round to having a piece of Christmas cake. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... very nice this year. At some point I'll try to blog the recipe so that when I find I've lost the printout-with-scribblings in 10 months time I won't panic. It was actually the recipe I usually use but for a smaller tin so I had to start by doing arithmetic to work out the proportions, which I don't care to repeat too often. It's funny, I honestly hadn't felt like eating anything as overtly Christmassy as Christmas cake until today. And it'll probably last me another month.

A Hogmanay post

So, another Hogmanay, and this year we're at home. I'm knitting my garter stitch square and watching Tudor Monastery Farm, while drinking ginger-wine and lemonade. And cursing people who are letting fireworks off early!

I've ended the year with a little Hogmanay dye batch - red onion skins, brown onion skins and a few daffodil heads. Bunches of daffodils have appeared in the supermarkets very early this year so I've had daffodils on my windowsill since Christmas Eve, which has seemed a bit odd but added a welcome splash of zingy yellow.  I didn't do a huge amount of dyeing this year, so it was quite nice to end the year with a bit. It's still drying on the radiator and the colour looks quite nice as far as I can tell by unnatural light - I'd like to think it's 'old gold' but it might be 'mustard'!

It's been a very wet, windy, mild December, so outdoors is windswept but not bleak. The Boy and I went for a damp walk yesterday to blow away the cobwebs and took pictures of this hedge:

Lovely colours but it was surprisingly tricky to get a photo that got that richness of colour.

The other day I took apart the kids advent calendars (I'm not one of these parents who insist on non-chocolate advent calendars - I remember getting picture-only ones when I was young and they were fun, but I also remember my first chocolate advent calendar and it was brilliant!) for the recycling. I hadn't noticed the detail the good people at Cadbury's had included in their knitting-themed Christmas chocolate range.

Look - the inside of the doors match the squares behind! Nice colours too!*

I'm not going to do a review of the year - there have been good bits and less good bits but I find New Year pretty arbitrary. And I know in Scotland we're all supposed to go mad for New Year but lots of us don't, and I've not been that keen on it for a long time - I mean, who wants to welcome in January anyway?  Ridiculous, pointless month (yes, I know I said it's pretty arbitrary - I never said I was consistent). The nights may be getting imperceptibly shorter, but it's still a long time 'til spring. Blimey, that's gloomy!  I'm really not :-D.  I'm quite happy to be sitting peacefully at home knitting and watching television.

So Happy Arbitrary Calendar Change to you all!

* No, I'm not sponsored by Cadbury's. *sigh*

Cracker joke

A classic of the genre!

Soooooo, 20 minutes until the final part of Death Comes to Pemberley, and I'm surprising myself by doing my fourth blog post in four days. Impressive for me! Of course, it's all trivia but that's just fine by me. My feet are being warmed by the small cat and I have my knitting ready to go - just a diagonal garter stitch square but it's what I'm in the mood for. Just before Christmas I got some rather nice wool from Lidl (sort of creamy-beige to grey, gradual colour change), and it's just crying out to be something comforting like a cushion cover.  So I'm knitting a square to see if it wants to be a cushion cover, and if not I can rip it back and see if it wants to be smaller squares sewn together into a cushion cover, or maybe something else entirely. I'm just like Michelangelo letting statues out of blocks of stone. No, really, I am.


Edited to add: Penelope Keith as Lady Catherine! Genius!

Dressing to match the walls

Me? Stealing water from the penguins? Must be somebody else you're thinking of.

I recorded part one of Death Comes to Pemberley last night and this evening I've watched that and part 2. I've enjoyed it so much I almost wish I'd waited 'til I had all three episodes so I could watch it back to back, but on the other hand I'm quite glad to have something to look forward to for tomorrow night. I don't know what the critics and the Austen fan-girls will make of it, but I'm loving it. I like Pride and Prejudice (book and 1995 tv series - not so keen on the Keira Knightley film) and I like mysteries, and it's working very well indeed for me. Besides which, it's just lovely to look at, especially on our new super-crisp bit-less-shiny television* - gorgeous, luscious colours and details. And Mrs Elizabeth Darcy, née Bennet, doing a cracking job of dressing to match the wallpaper. I'm not normally a big fan of turquoises and teals, but I was drooling over those walls already, and then she changes into a frock that matches! This is where I've been going wrong stylewise all my life..

Incidentally I can see why the critics and Austen fan-girls might be nervous - I've read a couple of 'sequels' to Pride and Prej, and they were, not to put too fine a point on it, complete shite. But this is most enjoyable. Also it gives me the chance to use my 'men in breeches' blog-post tag again.

In other news, I have iced the Christmas cake, much Lego has been built, we had a splendid afternoon when my brother came over today (to admire the Lego of course)  and pizza has been consumed by all. For the kids this is the second pizza this week. Tomorrow we're meeting with various in-laws for a meal at an Italian restaurant so I can foresee further pizza consumption in the near future. I may have to insist on a pizza-free zone for a couple of weeks to recover.

* Did I mention the television? A couple of weeks ago the boy Cat, he of knocking-over-the-Christmas-tree fame, knocked over a bookcase which knocked over the television which landed on the turret of Miss M's castle money-box. End of television. My Beloved was secretly pleased because he has the chromosome which has the need for new televisions at every opportunity and he thought the old one was too shiny - in that the screen reflected everything so that any dark scene would be dominated by the reflection of my beautiful beaded lamp floating in the corner like a luminous jellyfish.  I think he had a secret new-television-fund for just such an eventuality.  On reflection (ha!), we should thank the cat.

Of Penguins and Gulls

 Meet the swaabie.

One of Miss M's passions is Playmobil, and one of her presents this Christmas was the their Penguin Habitat, which includes penguins, penguin chicks, people, a bucket of fish, eggs, a bale of straw (we're not sure why - Miss M has decided it's to keep the eggs warm when the adult penguins can't be bothered) and a curious gull.  I love the gull - it has brilliant moulded wings. They could have just made it smooth-bodied but they gave it wings and, somehow, personality. We had a lot of fun setting the figures up and taking pictures, then Miss M sat playing with it for ages.

I find penguins hugely entertaining and fascinating and used to love watching Edinburgh Zoo's Penguin Cam until they got the pandas and it changed to dull-sleepy-panda-cam. I've just had a look though and they seem to have re-introduced Penguin Cam - apologies to Edinburgh Zoo if they did that ages ago, I just haven't checked for a while. So I'm not sure why when it comes to a toy penguin set that it's the very ordinary gull that I find so amusing.

The Playmobil penguins can slide down a chute into their pool, which you can fill with water and therefore get a satisfying splash. And the cats can drink from it of course. Because water from a dripping tap, a newly-drained bath or a toy penguin pool obviously tastes better than water from something as mundane as a cat-bowl.  That's basic cat psychology for you.

Christmas knitting

This was my one bit of Christmas knitting this year - a Jayne hot-water-bottle cover for my brother. I aim to amuse.  I've learned from previous years where I bit off more than I could chew, knitting-wise.

I used DROPS Nepal, and made up the pattern - it was a really quick, easy, watching-tv kind of knit.

It's been a lovely day, everybody doing nothing much, nibbling on chocolate, and pottering around. But now I feel something like a zombie so I'm going to lurch towards bed, and as Miss M lost a tooth while eating her lunch I'll do a bit of Tooth-Fairying on the way. Hope everyone else had a good time too!

The Pickled Walnut Dilemma

Ah. All calm. All quiet. Frenzy over. Christmas Eve, the kids are asleep and I've got my feet up. My Beloved is playing Command and Conquer. One cat is looking a bit twitchetty and the other is sitting in an empty Amazon box, partly-chewed. The box that is, not the cat. The cat was at the vet today getting a jab and is feeling a bit sorry for himself. The same cat knocked the Christmas tree down the other day (he doesn't understand that he's Too Big now), so now the tree is weighed down with a suit of chainmail.  Which is the kind of thing we have lying around.

I made the Christmas cake last week, marzipanned it yesterday and should have iced it today but it didn't happen. It was never going to happen. I don't know why I ever thought it would. I ended up taking the kids for a longish walk in the dark and the cold and the wind and the wet at half past seven tonight to wear them out a bit as they'd been stuck mostly indoors for the last couple of days. The wind had dropped a bit this evening to what those of us from the icy north call 'a bit breezy' and the media call the End of the World. By the time we got home the kids were still hop-skip-and-jumping and racing each other to lamp posts, while I was flagging somewhat. Still, they went off to bed quite readily and are snoring happily. Or that may be one of the cats.

I was moderately organised this year. I didn't bite off more than I could chew with Christmas knitting. I bought Christmas cards in October (then put them in a cupboard and forgot about them until mid-December). I panic-bought more wrapping-paper than you can shake a stick at, should you so desire and I've really no idea why you should, and this evening found all the unused wrapping paper from last year. I had sellotape, gift tags and sticky labels all prepared. I had a brief panic when I couldn't find a present I distinctly recalled wrapping, then found it in the Amazon box that the cat is sitting in. And now it's all done! Well apart from icing the cake.

We don't really go over the top with food at Christmas - fairly generous portions but we don't feel the need to go for the full-on multiple-course feasting that others seem to do. We're probably having curry for Christmas dinner, except the Boy who is having pizza. We had roast chicken this evening so we've done the roast thing without being burdened by tradition or sprouts.

At this time of year I love to indulge my addiction to magazines and entertain myself with their outlandish ideas of what is desirable and necessary in the perfect Christmas. I notice that the perfect Christmas rarely involves the cat knocking over the Christmas tree, by the way.  Cats are allowed to look peaceful and sleepy and nothing else in magazine photo-shoots.  Occasionally you'll see a picture with a cat glaring at the photographer from behind a chair and you know the photographer hadn't spotted it and the editor is too distracted by the Farrow & Ball paintwork to notice.

This year's 'They're joking surely?' award for Christmas writing in magazines goes to this gem:

Apparently pickled walnuts are a storecupboard (not usually one word?) essential! What will I do? I don't have any! The shops are shut!  In fact, I've never had any! Ever! I must be failing at something, everything! And look - I need artisan honey! Are the bees the artisans? Do they wear smocks?

I should possibly point out that in one of those 'how .... are you?' Buzzfeed quizzes that was doing the rounds on Facebook, I came out as 0% middle-class. Zero. Maybe I'm too chavvy for pickled walnuts. I prefer to think that I'm just too posh for that quiz. Think I might be the Queen.

Ooh, it's 00:00, it's Christmas in this time-zone. Think I'll go to bed.  Season's Greetings of whatever flavour to you all!

I could while away the hours, Conferrin' with the flowers..

Or browsing on Pinterest for that matter.  I don't while away the hours doing that, because I don't have enough hours (my diary is currently scaring me and I'm only a housewife), but I can imagine you could while away the hours there quite easily, given half a chance.  One thing I've found a lot of on Pinterest recently is book art - that is, making things out of books or out of pages of books. While part of me thinks 'oooh, clever, interesting, amazing', the rest of me is rocking backwards and forwards sobbing 'not the books, not the books'.  I just couldn't cut up a book. Not even one I hate, because I couldn't have a clever, interesting, amazing arty thing around knowing the words on it are from a book I hate.  Besides there are very few books I hate so I don't have books-I-hate piles lying round and I'm not going to pay for a book I hate am I? I can't convince myself that it's recycling to cut up a book I don't hate but am not likely to re-read either. Those go to charity shops for someone else to enjoy if they're in decent enough nick. So I suppose what I need is a book I like which is actually disintegrating in front of my eyes. Then it might be okay.

I can't cut up 'old pieces of sheet music' either. I do think sheet music is incredibly decorative and I have made things that could loosely be described as paper art (paper hearts stuck to the dining-room window) using it, but I found the music on a free sheet music website and printed it out myself.  Yes, not very green but not the horror of cutting into actual music. Actual sheet music presumably being sheet music not printed by me. I know, it doesn't make a huge amount of sense.

Newspapers don't count of course. I'll use newspaper for anything. I mostly use newspaper to dispose of the grosser findings in the cat litter tray. Though in fact, I rarely buy newspapers - the local paper occasionally for a quick glance through, knowing full well I'm going to be scooping cat poo onto it in five minutes. Sometimes it improves it.

Another thing I see a lot on Pinterest and elsewhere at this time of year is people using newspaper to wrap Christmas presents. I'm not sure if anybody actually does this or if it's just a things people do for magazine articles. They look to be suspiciously freshly ironed newspapers. And presumably ones without any bad news or shrieking headlines in them. Not sure I've ever seen a newspaper like that, meself. They do look lovely though.

I'm not a complete paper Grinch. Today I sat on the floor making paper snowflakes with Miss M.  We added glitter and everything (glitter everywhere, though mostly on me). My thing with paper snowflakes though is that they must be six-pointed*, anything else gives me that sense of not-quite-right that I also get from misplaced apostrophes (not the occasional typo, I mean catastrophically misplaced apostrophes, you know the ones). One of those stars was made at school by one of the kids last year and is based on a circle folded into four. It's only maternal love holding it up there. And a bit of blutak.

Since then the Christmas tree has gone up and I've thrown every bauble I can find at it. I know there are more baubles somewhere, my favourite ones in fact, but I've already sent My Beloved back up into the loft once for the lights and Christmas stockings. I don't do ladders very well since a falling-off-the-loft-ladder incident in my teens so our loft is terra incognita for me. There could be anything up there for all I know.

*For me. I'm not enforcing it or anything.

Hogmanay

 Invigorating!

I really should be wearing my slippers. We're at my parents' house and the floor downstairs is concrete under the carpet. The picture above is from yesterday when we were on our way here. It looks worse than it was actually - it rained most of the way and was only sleety snow at Drumochter, the most chilly and exposed bit of the journey. But on the way I saw deer, coming further downhill due to the snow, and lots of pheasants.

 Today. Chilly.

Christmas turned out quite frenetic in the end.  No matter how organised you are (not that I was) this can happen. No point worrying about it, though obviously I did, because I wouldn't be me if I didn't. We had an untraditional Christmas really. Although my Beloved and I like roasts, though not turkey, the kids don't really, and my mother-in-law (vegetarian) was coming over for Christmas Day, so we had homemade pizza instead. Everybody chose their favourite toppings, it was all quite quick and easy and there's minimal washing-up, so all in all it was ideal.  And delicious. Mmm pizza...

I made a mincemeat traybake from the Be-Ro cookbook, rather than than mince pies and it came out really well except that I baked it in a silicone 'tin' and I always forget that silicone doesn't conduct heat in the same way so the pastry didn't crisp up properly - oh noes, soggy bottom! Still tasted nice, but I must remember to use a tin next time.

And now it's Hogmanay. I spent some time this afternoon winding some Yarn Yard Clan into a ball. On a spurtle as I'd left my nostepinne at home. I couldn't have been more of a Scottish cliché if I'd been eating shortbread and drinking whisky, which I'm planning to do shortly of course.  The yellow Clan is for the next stage of Project Rainbow, though actually I've only finished half of 'orange' - a single lonely sock. I'll cast its mate on shortly but thought it'd be nice to have the gloriously sunny buttercup Clan ready to go in dreich January. I'm not really a fan of New Year as a celebration, never have been. It's all so arbitrary. And has the distinct disadvantage of ringing in January, my least favourite month, but when I'm feeling Januaryish I'll look at that yellow and forget it all!  I don't have very much (65g) so it's going to be the main colour in a thin stripy scarf, and I'll use up various leftovers from socks and other small projects, including 'red' and orange', as the contrasting stripes. In my head it looks fantastic!

Well, happy new January everybody - my Kiwi friends are already waking up with a hangover, my USian friends are probably eating lunch and I'm off for a glass of whisky with my parents and my Beloved!

Oh frabjous day, callooh callay!

My sock turned up! I finally got back to the last place I'd definitely had it and there it was, camouflaging itself. The problem, as I think you can see, is that I managed to leave it in the one place where it was hardest to spot. I have a talent for doing things like that.

 Front of project bag, visible.

Ooops, bag gets flipped over, instant chameleon! 

And it was tucked almost behind a cushion so it's no wonder my friend didn't spot it when she looked for it. So yay, back to the sock. I'm supposed to be done by the end of the month but I'm still only on the first sock - better get a wiggle on then..



The trouble with December of course is that's full of social occasions, like the school Christmas disco:

at which I helped out, doing the chocolate fountain and managed to splash chocolate all down the front of my hoody.

This has been a loooooong day - I'm off to bed!

Lurgies

Well, it's traditional isn't it? What's December without a scratchy throat and a cough? Even the Boy, usually superhealthy, has a cough.  To add to that this week I have an infected eyelid, something called blepharitis - though apparently that's just an inflamed eyelid, but the pharmacist reckoned mine was infected. Lovely. There's nothing like having a red, grotesquely swollen eyelid is there? I've looked like Rudolph would look if he were painted by Georges Braque or possibly Picasso. But the magic ointment is working and I'm looking more normal again, although I can't wear my contact lenses 'til I've finished the medication so I'm wearing my glasses full-time for the first time in ages. Which is frustrating. I just don't see as well with glasses.

The weather however has been cold but aesthetically pleasing:

 Clear skies

 Favourite Tree

 Favourite line of trees (bottom of the field that Favourite Tree stands in)

 Frosty

 Still some colour in the garden.

 More frosty

Frosty lupin leaves - this is one of my favourites!

In other news, I've lost my knitting - that is, the orange sock. Fortunately it was in a small project bag so I've only lost a half-knitted sock, a set of dpns and I think a notebook, so it could be worse, but I'm still quite gutted. I'm hoping it might turn up at the hall Miss M does her dancing classes in because I definitely had it with me when she was there for their Christmas party.

Our Christmas tree is up and Cat1 hasn't tried to climb it yet though he's lurked underneath it in a suspicious manner a couple of times.  He's doing that right now in fact.

I have written my Christmas card list, which is good, though I can't remember where I put the actual cards so writing them might be tricky, which is bad. Being inherently fairly optimistic though, I'm hopeful they might actually get posted on time.  This would be a first.