Hello 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.
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.
A really pleasant day today, the sun was shining, which is always encouraging, and I was looking forward to the Crisis at Christmas coffee morning at our local church to see all those friends from the village that I don’t see often enough.
I came away with a pack of sweet shop jars for £2.50 for Little L (who has asked Santa for a shop this year) and selected two books for a donation of £2 – they look brand new; the murder mystery one I will pass on to my mum when she visits – and The Winter Children I was attracted to by the title and I live in hope that I will find some time to read at Christmas.
After lunch I spooned more brandy into the fruit for the cake (I might even need to buy another bottle), the lemons are reserved to make lemon curd. The aroma in the kitchen is just lovely at this time of year it is certainly the best place to be and through the kitchen window I could see the birds scurrying around in the undergrowth and checking the bird feeders for peanuts which to their dismay were empty…so armed with seed, peanuts and a half coconut shell of fat I went outside to refill all the feeders. 
Apart from the cold it was quite pleasant in the garden and I stopped to take a few photos as there are one or two little pockets of colour here and there – the silvery leaves of the Honesty and the glorious bright red berries of the Cotoneaster, they almost glow in this grey winter light.
Yesterday we had to go to B&Q for a piece of wood for DH to finish the shelving in the shed. We have reused as much as we can from the old melamine wardrobe but he was short of an upright. B&Q have started a waste wood bin like Ikea and you can take what you like for a small donation (Ikea is for free). We were out of luck though as the wood in the waste bin was not a suitable size this time.
During the afternoon I spent some more time on designing my Christmas card – mostly playing around with ideas and sketches. I think I might have a design at last and hope to start cutting the lino tomorrow after I have made the cake and lemon curd.
We are back home again from our weekend away. We had a lovely time at the family gathering it is so nice to be together for Sunday lunch and a catch up; and show off the new arrival. A friend had made this cake to celebrate my daughter’s 10th wedding anniversary. Little L wore her new sparkly party dress and everyone had a good time.
I made Tomato soup yesterday and more soup today, a minted green soup with watercress, spinach, lettuce and pea. We had some for lunch and I have put the rest in the freezer for another day. Hot soup on a cold day is perfect for lunch. It was too cold to be cleaning out the freezer today so I have postponed this job yet again for another day.
I keep getting vouchers at Sainsbury’s for bonus Nectar points but only if I spend over £100 – which I don’t. Waitrose have sent me a coupon for £22 off a £110 shop. This we might use nearer Christmas and buy one of their rooted trees again.
Luckily I am able to cut the costs of the gifts by recycling unwanted items and taking advantage of sales.  We also sold 3 unwanted items on eBay this week so have gained £38 in my PayPal account which has boosted the kitty. Another saving of £5.80 was the voucher for a free hot drink and scone at John Lewis when we went to buy my daughter’s gift and because we went to the Cheadle branch the parking was free.
To save on costs we added in a few bunches of our own courtesy of the cheap bouquets sold at the local Co-op the day before, together with a bunch of Hypericum and eucalyptus from our local market stall! These were used to fill the jars we hung on the railings and Shepherd’s hooks in the Church grounds.
Luckily my daughter wanted a home-made country look for her wedding so we were able to work to quite a tight budget.
We used a professional photographer that was both fun and willing to take a mix of formal and more informal shots. He certainly kept all our guests entertained with his humour and he took us all for a wander around Masham capturing some very unusual scenes – these are two of my favourite – in the telephone box on the left and outside the Bah Humbugs shop.
The reception was held in the local town hall and once the formal pictures had been taken outside the church we all walked round in procession to the venue led by the bride and groom – no need to hire any cars. Local friends, neighbours and shopkeepers from Masham came out to cheer the happy couple.
As the town hall is not considered a normal wedding venue these days we had to hire in tables and white linen cloths from a local caterers and we added the plain orange napkins. The chairs were supplied with the room but were rather shabby so one of biggest expenses was the hire of the Lycra chair covers and organza bows but this made all the difference to the room and the locals said they had never seen the town hall looking so good!
The favours were in plain calico bags decorated with pine cones and dried ferns with hand written craft labels.
For the pew ends we bought rustic twig hearts and added a natural raffia bow.
We had a wonderful and fun day finishing with a rousing Ceilidh with music by The Applejacks.
where the journey takes me 2 