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For days when you doubt it

Advent Blogging

In addition to posting my own musings, I've been following a couple of other Advent-themed blogs:

Hannah Broadway has been brightening up my day with her bold festive images.

Jen has been matching photos and words to get us in the mood.

Karin reflects on how the way we choose to celebrate is an expression of our inner self.

The Coffee Lady takes an irreverent view of Advent calendars, laser-cut houses and stags' heads!

C puts us all to shame by making her own delightful snowscape calendar.

Lucy embarks on another crocheted masterpiece.

Dotty Cookie devises an impressive series of Advent activities for her children.

Gillian and Charlotte have been making their own edible gifts, while Karen has transformed a branch from her apple tree into a stunning illuminated feature.

So pop over and be inspired!

The photograph is a very poor quality one of our advent calendar.  I really should try to get a better image of it.

On the Second Day of December

Today's chapter was all about presents.

There were several suggestions:

Give everyone the same present:  I did this on a couple of occasions.  Each time it was a book for families with young children.  The first was Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's River Cottage Family Cookbook and the second was Jostein Gaarder's The Christmas Mystery.

Make your presents:  I've been doing this for several years now.  Not all of them, but the ones I give to friends.  They've all been edible - truffles, florentines, stollen, lebkuchen, chutney etc.    I'll be doing the same again this year.  I just haven't decided what it will be.

This year I'm trying to avoid the big stores and buy presents from independents and local artists/crafters.  Bristol offers an incredible array of Christmas markets (in addition to its usual galleries).  This weekend alone I visited three and picked up a couple of items in each.  And there are plenty more to come between now and the big day.

How do you choose your presents?  Do you make your own and, if so, have your any suggestions for me this year?

PS  Today's photograph has nothing whatsoever to do with presents.  It's just that today being the first Sunday in Advent I got to eat my first mince pie!  It was well worth the wait.

Mere Baubles ...

but I like them.

I fashioned the balls around the outside from bits of coloured fleece at last week's WI meeting.  They were easy enough to roll between my palms, the only difficulty being in trying to make them all the same size.

The two in the middle were ones someone else had prepared earlier but which I decorated with sequins and beads sewn on with glittery thread.

The plain ones will be used to make a bracelet.  The decorated ones will become ear rings.

Ta Da! Moment - Floral Bunting

I am (Exceedingly) Amused!

One of the things I love about Bristol is that you never know what you're going to come across when you turn the corner.

This evening,  on my way into town to celebrate my younger daughter's 18th birthday, I cam across this.

It's absolutely brilliant.

Knitiffi, (tagline: Art is never finished, only abandonned ...) is a a collective of knit artists whose mission is to make our world a brighter, happier place.

  Well, they certainly did it for me!

Easter Holiday Plans

Tomorrow is the first day of my Easter holidays.  Weekends don't count in my book.
Now although one of the purposes of holidays is to relax, take it easy and recharge the batteries,  I know, from experience, that I am rather inclined to take this too seriously and reach the end of my break from work without having achieved very much, if anything at all.

So this time I've  decided to set myself some challenges, namely

1. Spring clean the house
2. Read Colm Toibin's Story of the Night (in addition to Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife which I must finish in time for our next Reading Group meeting a week on Friday.
3. Draw up a four week menu plan
4. Create a sourdough starter and start making my own bread
5. Knit 5 granny squares a day for my younger daughter's blanket

To achieve these goals I will need to be organised and cut down on the time I spent watching the television and surfing the net, which is a good thing in itself.  I will, of course, continue to blog and post regular reports on my progress.

Day 21 - Delicious

It's 10 days since Hermann came to live with us.  This afternoon I divided the bubbling batter into four portions.  Two to pass on to friends, one to keep and one to transformed into a Friendship Cake.  Aside from the flour, sugar, oil etc the recipe is fairly flexible.  I added cubed apples, broken walnuts and dried cranberries.  It went down well with the ladies who knit & natter this afternoon.

PS Just noticed that this is my 250th post.  If I'd realised earlier I would have added a few candles!

Week Ending

This weekend I ...

... worked too long on Friday afternoon
... watched The Way on Movies on Demand
... wondered if I'll ever achieve my dream of following the ancient pilgrim way from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago di Compostella
... visited a Christmas craft fair at the Southville Centre
... bought some Christmas bunting and a few stocking fillers
... did some housework ... but not nearly as much as I should have
... enjoyed an excellent belly pork roast dinner cooked by my husband
... went for an early Sunday morning walk at Ashton Court with a friend and her two dogs
... attended a practice for the advanced song I'm singing at next weekend's Gasworks concert
... did a bit of Christmas shopping in Broadmead
... listened to my younger daughter play Sibelius' Symphony No 1 with the Bristol Schools' Philharmonia in the Victoria Rooms

Inspired by littlegreenshed 

Counting the Days

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon wrapping small presents for our Advent calendar.

When both my daughters lived at home we had two calendars, a Divine chocolate one and another with embroidered pockets which took me several years to complete and of which I am inordinately proud.  Now that my older daughter is away at university they each have a Divine calendar and continue to share the other.  Last year my daughter opened her share of presents on her return but this year she has asked for them to be posted to her so that she can open them on the appropriate dates.  I'm going to enclose a CD of highlights from the Messiah, without which Advent would not be complete.

I'm fascinated by the variety of homemade Advent calendars.  Sue over at The Quince Tree has a very charming stained glass effect version while Magic Bean has designed one to be coloured in.  I've seen rows of knitted socks and heard about one where cryptic clues lead the child to a present hidden somewhere in the house.

Do you have one to share?

Baubles, Bangles and Beads

Last night I was invited to a bead party. It was my first, but I've been to many similar evenings involving Tupperware, candles, kitchen equipment etc. I confess to mixed feelings about them. While I'm grateful for any opportunity to get together with friends over a glass of wine and a bowl of tortilla chips, the pressure to buy, no matter how downplayed by the hostess, invariably detracts from my enjoyment of the evening.

So I'm glad to report that last night was an unqualified success. It got off to a promising start with a glass of sloe gin and a bowl of chilli but continued to please even when we moved into the dining rooms to get down to business. The tables were laid out with an impressive selection of gorgeous glass beads and exquisite silver spacers with which we were given free reign to design our own bracelets, necklaces etc. There was no pressure to do anything more than have fun playing around with the colours and shapes.

Fortunately for my friend, who received 10% of the takings, I created, and bought(!) two St Valentine's Day presents for my daughters. For many years now I've bought them 'a little something' on the 14th of February. It's usually something less expensive,but they've both impressed me with their hard work and determination this year,and I think they deserve a reward, especially one they'll not be expecting.

Quilting for Beginners

Inspired by Jane Brocket, who visited the Malago WI to talk about quilt making and show us some of her gorgeous creations, I signed up for an introductory course last Saturday. We began by sewing precut squares together and then moved on to using paper templates and try our hand at a log cabin design. We trimmed our patchwork squares with the rotary cutter and sandwiched wadding between the quilt and the backing fabric. By the end of the afternoon we each had a small quilt to take home.

I had a really good time.

To Quilt or not to Quilt?

The Malago WI met tonight with a guest speaker, the quilter, and all round crafty person, Jane Brocket. If the word 'quilt' conjures up fiendishly intricate arrangements of flowery hexagons, then think again. Jane Brocket loves big and bold and bright. I can't reproduce any of her designs without permission, so you will have to pop over to her site to see them for yourself. A feast for the eyes on a rather damp and dreary evening.

Like all talented artists she made it sound so easy. I may even give it a go myself ... one day!

Stitch & Bitch

This evening the girls and I attended a Stitch and Bitch session at the Tobacco Factory. The group meets every first and third Monday but this evening was devoted to the creation of an Oxfam blanket. The campaign to raise awareness of maternal mortality has been running for some time now. Volunteers have been knitting hundreds and thousands of squares which are now being assembled to form blankets. The blankets will be sold to raise funds for Oxfam.

We passed a very pleasant evening drinking coffee, sewing squares and chatting. The only bitch was about the poor service offered by First Bus!

One of my 49before50 challenges is to knit myself a scarf. Once I have picked a pattern and bought the wool, Stitch & Bitch may provide the required encouragement to finish it off.

49 before 50

This summer I'll be 50. Although I don't feel it, and hope I don't look it, I shall nonetheless reach my half century later this year. So, in anticpation of this momentous day, I have devised a list of 49 things I would like to do before I'm 50. Phew, I'm going to be busy!

1. Catch the ferry to Bees Tea Gardens
2. Bake a brioche
3. Watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy in one day
4. Knit myself a scarf
5. Teach my daughters how to knit
6. Make a Cornish pasty
7. Walk to Bath along the cycle path
8. Make my will
9. Make a year's supply of marmalade
10. Sort through my photographs
11. Have our Amsterdam poster framed
12. Grow half a dozen vegetables in our back garden
13. Paint the front door
14. Make a birthday card from recycled materials
15. Work my way through my piano book
16. Make tablet
17. Watch a Bollywood movie with my daughters
18. Make a note of all my friends' birthdays
19. Read a French novel
20. Buy an address book and make a note of all my friends' addresses
21. Reduce my BMI to 20
22. Write to all the people who sent us Christmas cards
23. Reduce our landfill waste to 100g or less per week
24. Write one letter a month for Amnesty
25. Read at least one book a month
26. See at least one film a month
27. Phone my sister once a week
28. Clear out my wardrobe
29. Book tickets for Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory
30. Make Pashka at Easter
31. Give up something for Lent
32. Take up something for Lent
33. Bake Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday
34. Remember to use the shrink wrap egg decorations at Easter
35. Follow the longest trail in Leigh Woods
36. Take a picnic (and some friends) to Brandon Hill
37. Visit the Georgian House
38. Make butter
39. Learn to crochet
40. Make my daughers something for their birthdays
41. Cook a special Valentine's dinner
42. Preserve lemons
43. Have the piano tuned
44. Devise a 4 week menu
45. Attend evensong at the Cathedral
46. Arrange our classical CD collection
47. Book tickets for the BBC Proms
48. Grow giant sunflowers in our front garden
49. Organise a 50th birthday celebration

To record my progress I have started a new blog called (wait for it!) 49before50 which also give me the opportunity to try out blogging on Wordpress.

Alleluia!

Happy Easter! Alleluia! (which for some inexplicable reason I prefer to Hallelujah)

The eggs were decorated Ukrainian style (known as pysanky) by my younger daughter and myself at a friend's house a fortnight ago. It's a method not unrelated to batik, and involves tracing patterns on the shell with melted wax before dipping them in a series of coloured dyes. There were a dozen of so of us (all ages and both sexes) seated round the dining room table working away while drinking tea, eating cake and chatting. It was one of the most relaxing and yet most productive Sunday afternoons I have spent in a long time. I'd like more of them. The friend is American and I get the impression, from films such as Witness (one of my all time favourites*), that Americans are traditionally better at communal artistic activity than we are. There's nothing like a bit of manual work to help people relax and communicate with one another.

* due in large part to a memorable scene in which Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis 'dance' round a broken down car to Wonderful World by Sam Cooke, Herb Alpert and Lou Adler.