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dEAr diary ~ a happy new year

2019Hello everyone and a Happy New Year to all my followers and readers.

I just thought I would drop by for a few minutes whilst there is calm once more.  It is so quiet here today I feel the house is fast asleep – recovering from the busyness of the last few weeks.

We spent Christmas Eve delivering gifts to friends and then had an unexpected visit from my elder daughter and SIL in the evening.  Unintentionally, we were late to bed and then quite late up on Christmas morning – this did not matter though as DH and I spent Christmas day on our own, through choice, as we did not relish a further trek up to North Yorkshire after having been up there on the Sunday before for the family party, and both our daughters were spending Christmas with their respective in-laws.

It was the first time ever we have been completely alone on Christmas Day but I actually enjoyed it.  We had no deadlines to meet for meals, no one to entertain and it was a chance to take advantage of the quiet time after a busy month and a busy year.  In fact I will make sure we have a day like this every year – perhaps not on Christmas Day but maybe at some point over Christmas.  Of course it is much easier to plan a day of doing nothing when everyone else is occupied.Christmas Tree

I had some lovely gifts from my friends and vouchers for John Lewis from our family Not so Secret Santa.  Perfect.  Here are a few of my favourite.These delicate handmade wire snowdrops… a little felted bird… a stack of hand made soaps and some pot pourri… two printed mugs on a matching little tray.

Last night we spent the evening with some of our dearest friends, feasting, laughing and playing games  – a wonderful way to see the new year in.

So now we are in 2019 already looking back on 2018, which for me was quite a mixed year; we started the year in January with the sad loss of 3 family members and then a few months later celebrated the marriage of one and the birth of another.  So like many other families it is always in a continuous state of ebb and flow.

During the last few days I have been planning and plotting and also pondering on a new focus word… but at the point of writing this has not revealed itself to me yet; but I am not in any particular hurry.  My focus word last year was  The Power of Small and indeed I did make small adjustments to various aspects of my life which then produced some major and unexpected changes – the most notable being leaving my job and the security that brings.

I always love this month of January it never feels bleak to me – I am eager to set new goals, think about new challenges and looking forward to what the new year may bring, even those little unexpected surprises.  Of course I want it to be all good things but I know that will never be the case – I only hope that the inevitable problems when they come are not insurmountable or too traumatic that I will not be able to cope.

But for now all around me is good – my friends and family are all relatively well, we have a warm home plenty of food and I am feeling quite blessed.

A good start to the year so far.

 

 

 

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crEAting Christmas ~ days 19 to 24

Christmas Eve has arrived.  There was still a lot of hustle and bustle in the village earlier – the last-minute dash to the Co-op and Post Office for those forgotten items; but in the main people are settling down at home now and soon calm will descend on the village again.  We were out this afternoon completing my final Advent task.  This is how my Advent days 19 to 24 panned out…

Day 19 my task read ‘make lemon curd for gifts and save a jar to keep’.Lemon Curd Lemon Curd Lemon CurdI had just four organic lemons to make some lemon curd – there was enough for 3 jars – one jar went to my younger daughter yesterday and another into a home made hamper for my elder daughter and of course one saved just for me for my toast tomorrow.

Day 20 was set aside to make a gift for three of my closest friends.  I  bought some of those wall calendars that you can put your own photos in.  I needed 3 and was lucky to find that Boots did three for the price of two so they only cost me £5.33 each plus printing costs.For each friend we chose a selection of photos some months included pictures of themselves (unseen footage) and we also found photos of places they might recognise.

Day 21 this advent task was the grand wrapping day.  I always like to make my gifts more individual by wrapping each of them differently – I think it makes a gift mean so much more. 

I filled a bag with a few goodies for my mum to enjoy…

You may remember the gift envelopes I made from last years Christmas cards in January (see here).  For the smaller gifts I often use printed tissue paper – I absolutely loved this old-fashioned Christmas design with the holly.  The little clay dove tag I made in a previous year. With difficult presents I wrap them in tissue paper and then put them into plain craft bags that have been stamped or you could stick a Christmas picture onto the bag from an old Christmas card.The calendars were wrapped in plain brown paper and then stamped with snow flakes.I also keep a roll of wrapping paper when I want something just a bit special and try to tie in the colours of the paper with a tag made from …you guessed it…an old Christmas card.

Day 22  – ‘set some time aside to read a favourite Christmas book’

Who can avoid reading Miss Read at Christmas time – tales of village folk and their country ways.  I wanted to get the Village Christmas but could not find it to buy and the library do not seem to stock her anymore.  So I settled for rereading an old copy of Battles at Thrush Green and after tea watched another episode of Poirot.Miss Read

Day 23 – ‘a birthday party celebration’

For this we made our way once again up to North Yorkshire on the A1(M) putting the car onto automatic (Ha ha!) to go to my sister’s house where we were celebrating my niece’s 21st birthday with family and friends.  It was a lovely do and I got to see Little L and Sweetie once again and also exchange any gifts.  My sister now has the largest house and it is a perfect entertaining space (not that I am deeply envious or anything!).  The draw back is I cannot even make a cuppa tea as there is no kettle, only one of those strange taps, and I have to guess which cupboard houses the fridge from a bank of cabinets and I always choose the wrong one.

Day 24 – Christmas Eve…delivering the remainder of our presents to our friends.  This is so enjoyable as most people have done all they are going to do by now and we can go from house to house enjoying a drink, a biscuit and a natter.  This year took rather longer than expected so I over ran and have missed the Crib Service which was included in my Advent task so I might go to the Midnight Mass later.

So that is the end of my Advent activities – I switched a couple of tasks as I was running out of time.  The little tea cosy and napkins are half started but will have to wait until later in the week before I get the sewing machine out again.

And just before I go you might remember a picture of some little tissue wrapped parcels I had after our recent visit to Scotland see here.   They were inexpensive items of one pound or just over.  This is what was inside.Two glass owls, 5 baubles in the shape of pine cones and a tiny red father Christmas.

I am not sure when I will post again – a few days rest perhaps – but I wish you all a very

   Happy Christmas and New Year

xxx

 

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crEAting Christmas ~ day 18

So much to do and so little time  – maybe that is better than so little to do and so much time?   I often find if I have time I will fill it with something and Christmas is no different.  Just when I think oh yes I am nearly done you can guarantee I will be off on another project – just fitting one more thing in.  I can’t say it has been any different this year but I do get carried away with all the Christmas making and baking and never feel I have done enough.

Anyway to the Advent task on day 18 – this was one of my favourites a bit of repurposing.

Christmas stocking

A while ago I sorted through a bag of vintage table linens and crotched doyleys that I acquired when my mum moved out of our family home a few years ago.  They had been passed on to her from my grandma.   I washed and pressed the ones I wanted to keep and took some to charity, but there was one or two that had bad stains on them that I couldn’t remove.  I kept them and began thinking of what I might do with them as I loved the fabric.

One of the items I kept was a small round tablecloth that you would put over a little side table.  The fabric is a white Jacquard linen – the type you will have seen old-fashioned napkins made of – edged with some cotton lace which may or may not be hand-made.  Because of the stain it was no use as a cloth anymore so I thought about what I might do with it.

Then recently I saw it in the drawer with my sewing bits and had an idea.  I decided to make little Sweetie, my new granddaughter, a little Christmas stocking for her first Christmas.  I only had a few hours to make it so it is not my best sewing and the beading is a bit wobbly but my daughter likes things to look homemade so it won’t be a problem.

So now little Sweetie has something that once belonged to her great, great grandma to keep.Christmas stockingBut you will need to keep it a secret until Christmas Eve (and her real name too!)

Only a few more days to go now so I hope I can complete my Advent activities posts in time.  Apologies again that I am out of sync with the actual days – but you can’t have everything – life has a way of taking over sometimes.  x

 

 

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crEAting Christmas ~ day 17

Mince pies Mince piesDay 17 – I swapped my Advent task today to make the mince pies  – after all Christmas would not be Christmas without them even though I can only eat one or two as they don’t really agree with me now.  I often bake these tiny ones as they make a lovely token gift and this batch was to take in to my old workplace for my former colleagues.

I was eager to try out the new kitchen tool I found at the local hardware store when we were in Scotland.  It is a wooden pastry tamper – it cost about £5 and is double ended for pressing the pastry of small or large circles into the trays.

I was impressed – it works a treat and gives the pies a professional look.  To save time I used the ready-made roll of all butter short crust pastry – I like the fact it has all natural ingredients.  I was a bit disappointed that the finished pastry case is a little on the thick side; if I used it again I would put the rolling-pin over it to make it slightly thinner.

Mince piesThe thickness didn’t affect the taste though, the pastry was ‘melt in the mouth’ with no soggy bottoms.  After a dusting of icing sugar I packaged them up onto these little white trays (I collected during the year from Chocolate Mini Rolls) lined with a doyley and added a sprinkling of confetti – green metallic holly leaves. Mince piesI also took in a tray of the chocolates.  Well it is Christmas.

It is getting very close now to the big day – most of my list has been ticked off and just a few bits and pieces left to do but if they don’t get done I wouldn’t be worried. The traffic in town and the village is building up and the shops getting busier so it is taking longer to do anything that requires leaving the house.  I expect it will get worse over the weekend.

There still seems to be an awful lot of stock to shift in the shops and the prices are steadily dropping but there is nothing now that I need to buy.  We have all the gifts ready and a spare emergency one just in case.  My family Not so Secret Santa gift was for my younger daughter and she needed a coat that fit her now she has had the baby.  I bought part of it for her birthday too (as it is in December) and suggested she start wearing it now rather than wait for Christmas.  We wouldn’t normally do that but there was no point in her being cold until Christmas Day.

We have a family 21st party on Sunday at my sisters and then I am looking forward to a quiet Christmas at home.