Happy Birthday Number One Son

As every year passes I find it difficult to believe that my sons are as old as they are. Number One Son, Oliver, is 28 today. I don't know about you, but on each of their birthdays I offer up a silent prayer of thanks that another year has passed without serious mishap.

Life hasn't always been easy for Oliver, but he's grown up to be a wonderful young man, thoughtful, caring and as quirky as all get out! We only get to see him every five or six weeks these days, but I always look forward to it so much. We're neither of us great telephone chatters, so our calls tend to be brief and to the point, but we have such fun when we get together.

This weekend we're off in our camper van to Brighton, where we will be able to spend Saturday with both of our sons - a rare and wonderful occurrence - celebrating Oliver's birthday from this week and Number Two Son's birthday which will come up on the 17th December.

Happy Birthday Oliver,

Christmas littlies

One of the best things about the run up to Christmas is being able to make lots of tiny goodies to decorate the home. I've been on a bit of a roll, and for once the sunshine came out to help my photography. We've had rain every day bar one for the last month I think, and even this morning it was raining first thing. The sun is very low at this time of the year, so the shadows are rather strong but that can't be helped.

I've made some more door hangers, a door stop which took Rosie's fancy and finished off a cute little angel hanger that I started last year.

We've dug all the Christmas boxes out of storage, just to remind ourselves of what we've got, so that we can start thinking about where to put them in our new house. They won't go up for a while yet though, and we won't buy a tree for a few more weeks; we always buy a real tree and don't want it to dry up and drop its needles everywhere too soon.

Next job is to make the waistcoat I promised Number Two Son; it's his birthday on the 17th December so that seems like a good target to aim for.

Midsomer Quilting Exhibition

Here are some of the quilts exhibited at this year's Midsomer Quilt Exhibition. It was held in Radstock Museum, which was a lovely setting. I was only able to take a few photographs as I forgot to take my camera when I was a real visitor, so had to grab a few when I was stewarding on Wednesday.

I haven't been able to identify the names and makers of all of the quilts I'm afraid. Visitors were invited to nominate their favourite quilt, and whilst A Future and A Hope - Journeys and Destinations got the most votes, my own vote went to Mojaca Evenings. I loved the bold colours and the simple shapes that were so evocative of a hot Spanish evening.

Christmas market

Yesterday evening we went to Bath Christmas market. In spite of the rain it was quite magical, with the wooden booths nestled against the walls of Bath Abbey, their lights twinkling. There were all sorts of locally made items for sale, as well as goods from further afield; there were also sausages, burgers, pancakes, gluhwein, hot chocolate, tea and coffee. And doubtless more that we didn't see.

We bought some hazelnuts covered with orange and cocoa to nibble on whilst we looked. For ourselves for Christmas we bought a bagful of dried oranges and spices which will look lovely piled in a glass jar; we also bought a beautiful string of crystal icicles and snowflakes, each of which has a LED light inside and can be powered by either mains electricity or battery. Christopher found himself a wooden tie!

Afterwards we strolled further into the city to look at the Christmas lights. Then we had dinner at Strada before heading home. Christopher had a fish stew and I had grilled salmon wrapped in Parma ham with Puy lentils and green beens. Yummy.

And yes, that is Christopher you can see sneaking into a couple of the photographs!

Green thinking

Michelle of Rambling Woods--Taking the Road Less Traveled has given out Green Thinker Awards. She asks everyone to pass on the message to think green.

There's been a lot in the press about global warming - is it caused by man's activities or is it a natural phenomenon? My view tends to be that it won't hurt to try and be greener, just in case, as seems likely, that it is down to human activity. And if it's not because of us, then being greener now may help prevent problems in the future.

So, we do what we can by recycling as much as possible. The local council collects garden waste for composting, as well as paper, glass, tins and tin foil. We take plastic bottles, drinks cartons, cardboard to the dump, along with other recyclable/reclaimable articles. We donate unwanted items to the charity shops, and buy from them when appropriate. We belong to a book swapping library; use our own bags when shopping; wash and re-use plastic bags; compost food waste; grow some of our own food and get vegetables we can't grow through an organic local food box scheme. We're pretty good at turning off electrical items at the socket, rather than leaving them on standby; we don't leave the tap running when we brush our teeth; we shower rather than bath. We use long-life light bulbs and donate used printer cartridges to charity.

It sounds like a lot when listed like this, and I suppose we could stand back and pat ourselves on the back. But actually, it's not that big a deal, because it's easy. The only thing that takes any real effort is taking stuff to the dump, everything else just slots in to a normal day once you've got the hang of it. And I know that there's always more that we could do. And more and more people are considering this to be normal behaviour, so we're not doing anything out of the ordinary.

My next challenge is to use the tumble drier less. It's easy in the summer, but in the winter it's a different proposition altogether. I ought to make the effort to hang the washing outside on those rare days that it isn't actually raining. It won't matter if it takes several days to dry, or we could always hang it in the garage or the spare room. And it's not that difficult to put on a coat when it's chilly. I'm trying to convince myself that it will work, though it's difficult when we have the amount of rain that we've had recently, and when even the dry days are damp. But I'll give it a go.

So, why not grab the award, and tell us about how green you are - I bet you'll surprise yourself when you start to make a list of the great things you're already doing.

Machine blackwork

Yesterday I went to a workshop course run by a lady who owns a local plant nursery. In the winter she runs embroidery and craft workshops. She lives in a lovely little cottage, quite isolated a couple of miles from the village. There were seven of us (the maximum she takes is eight) and she provided a lovely lunch, salmon, salad, rice salad, vegetarian loaf, potatoes, rolls, fruit salad, date slice, meringues and cream. Brilliant. I didn't eat all of that of course, but it was there. So lovely to have a proper lunch provided, instead of having to make up your own and take it.

After exploring the stitches available on our machines and deciding which ones worked best, we set to work on making these flowers. I'm afraid the quality of the photographs is poor, but it's about 6.45 am, and I was too impatient to wait until daylight to take them and write this blog!

The plan is to cut them out and mount them on a background fabric. The smaller flower will be wired as I do the satin stitch and then fixed on top of the larger flower, giving a 3D effect. I'm not too sure what I will do after that. I could make some more to make a larger wall hanging, or I could set just the one in a frame, or I could leave it unmounted and put it in a vase. Any ideas?

I've signed up for some more of her classes as I enjoyed that one so much, and they're terrific value.

A lazy Sunday

It's 10.30am on Sunday morning and I'm still in bed! Disgraceful. And it's a sunny morning too, a welcome relief after the rain and winds of the last three days. But my excuse is that we had friends to supper last night, and whilst I kept it all very simple, I'm still rather tired. And apart from all the washing up there's nothing much to do today, so why not take it easy? I'm not really a slut, leaving the washing up am I? We don't have a dish washer, and I've never liked spoiling a pleasant evening by having to do the washing up after everyone's gone, so I always leave it to the morning - there's more hot water then anyway! Now, that's not a bad excuse.

On Thursday I braved the wind and the rain and made a trip to Ikea in Bristol. Thank goodness they had an underground car park with a direct entrance into the store, so I didn't get any wetter. Just getting out to the car had soaked me through up to the knees. Luckily, it wasn't too crowded and I was able to amble around and even spent some money. Apart from some coat hangers and Christmas wrapping and a few decorations I bought these:

Aren't these red gingham boxes cheerful. I've no idea what I want them for, but I just loved them. It's the same for the tins - no idea what I'm going to use them for, but they were too cheerful, and cheap, to leave behind.

This chair is destined for the kitchen, so that I can sit by our warm stove in the winter, listen to the radio, and stitch or knit, so I needed some comfortable cushions for it.

And this fabric was so pretty, and so cheap, that I bought some to make a tablecloth for our kitchen table. That's the problem with Ikea, so many things are such really good value that it seems a shame not to take some of them home!