In Between Time

What a beautiful cold and frosty morning! 

Perfect for this 'in between time'.  Christmas Day passed in a flurry of eating, drinking and flying wrapping paper; I loved my handmade gifts from Sandra, Helene, Jacqui and Barbara

I had made them each little purses

But I think on the 'home made' front, Victoria won!  She has stitched a beautiful cross stitch of Maidencourt:

It's truly magnificent - what a very clever young lady!

Our present to George, Victoria and Ben was a spot of flying which they enjoyed on Boxing Day morning (at first they thought I'd booked them to go sky diving, so they were relieved when they realised it was indoors!)

 

 

And then the next day it was the East Garston Fun Run and we all supported Victoria:

 

And now I don't really know what to do with myself.... Nearly all the turkey has gone; my favourite way to cook the left overs is make up a bake with onions, potatoes, cheese and drizzled with the garlic infused rape seed oil my sister gave us:

 

I think I'd better take the dogs out for a walk in this beautiful sunshine!

Christmas Eve

So, after all the hustle and bustle, panic, worry, - it's here!  And after an evening of carols, food and drink with family, friends and neighbours

(and that's only a quarter of those present), with lovely music

all there's left for me to do is wish everyone who comes to our workshops, and reads this blog,

A Very Merry Christmas!

Christmas is Coming....

- Well, I suppose it's here, really.  The parties have started, we went to the ballet and saw Romeo and Juliet, sang carols and danced in North Hidden barn, all our animated figures are out and Jonathan is enjoying replacing batteries and today things really got going when I bought the turkey and George and Jonathan went out and bought the Christmas tree.  It's very pretty but does look a bit as though it's been dropped from a great height so there are loads of branches at the bottom and it's a bit sparse on top:

A bit like a great big fat Christmas pud - impossible to get any presents under it:  I don't know how Santa will manage.

Talking of pressies, I've made the first blunder.  Every year I print off this blog with Blog to Print and give the book to my Mum for Christmas - it's a nice record of the past year and, until I introduced her to post-its, my mother liked to write little comments and questions on each page.

Anyway, in November I carefully did the lay out on line so she can see everything we've done in 2016, and sent it off to print.  It came the other day and I was really pleased with it until George pointed out the small error I made on the cover:

Careering from One Crisis to Another

Well, not really but it made me laugh the other day when my friend was here and something was going  on (can't remember what) and she said "Good Grief, I couldn't live in this house, you're always careering from one crisis to another!"

Anyway, I was up early on Saturday morning making the first mince pies of the year.  All went well and the first group of ladies arrived to make their Christmas wreaths.  Linda was showing them how to do it so I could return to the kitchen.  Poor old Reuben was looking very sorry for himself - he's always terribly upset when Jonathan doesn't take him out to work and mopes around giving me mournful looks.  As I was encouraging him to go outside he suddenly threw up!  Yuk.  I cleared it up and went out to see how things were going in the workshop.  The hot chocolate had been drunk and most of the mince pies had gone - a good sign!

And, by the end of the morning everyone had made beautiful wreaths!

Back to the kitchen to make the second batch of 24 mince pies - and I couldn't find the butter anywhere, but, it would be fair to say the kitchen wasn't as tidy as it could be.  I was very pleased when George offered to go and get some more rather than me continue to hunt high and low.

The afternoon ladies arrived, and nine more wreaths were under way.

Reuben was still really down in the dumps and I felt so sorry for him.  Jonathan had hired a man with a digger to clear away all the over grown hedging along the main road on Maidencourt bend (or Rabbitts bend as it's apparently know as in Lambourne)because there have been eight accidents there this year alone so something had to be done, and a collie bounding about would have been a hindrance.

I was just about to carry out the second platter of mince pies when Reuben threw up again - and all sympathy went out the window when I saw, in the mess, the wrapping from the butter!  He'd had it!

Anyway, although three ladies escaped before I had time to take a picture,  everyone was very pleased with their beautiful wreaths.

We have another workshop Wednesday morning and one in the evening, which we still have spaces on.

And earlier in the week was our Snowman workshop

Look carefully as you drive through Eastbury and you'll see one of them has taken up residence in a window there!