Christmas Eve

It's Christmas eve. The shopping's all done. The fridge is full. The last minute knitted gifts are wrapped. The home-made sloe gin is open. We've had our traditional meal with our lovely friends and walked to the Christingle service with them. The children are tracking Santa on Norad. Michael Buble is singing Christmas songs in the kitchen.

Happy Christmas!

December birthday girls

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here-the tree's up, the light up snowman and robins have taken up their positions in the garden and the old decorations which we bring out every year have been distributed around the house. The knitting needles are clacking away furiously on the last few knitted presents.
But there are 2 events to celebrate in December before we can start on Christmas. Kirsty and I have our birthdays on consecutive days-13th and 14th December.My baby was 14 this year-a very grown-up sounding age

We celebrated with a family party on the big day

followed by a fun friends party at home..complete with a marmite cake for the marmite-mad birthday girl!

the next day I celebrated..

with a birthday cake made entirely by Cameron

Playing catch-up

Well, I don't know where the last few months have gone, but I've been meaning to catch up on blog posts every week and it just never seems to happen.Over the past few months there has been a lot of yarn-y therapy going on...

this is the flower basket shawl knitted in alpaca sock yarn which I picked up at Woolfest earlier in the year,

My cable-yoke tunic knitted in Rowan coccoon...

and some Christmas presents

Summer 2011

Well, summer is almost over-Charlotte went back to school today and Kirsty and Cammeron start tomorrow.Am feeling a little wistful and sad-summers seem to be slipping away faster and faster as the years go by. Today was a truly horrible windy, rainy day and it made me feel that we'd skipped right past Autumn and straight into the depths of winter. I have been looking over the photos of our holiday and summer and decided to post them on here to cheer up this dark, cold day.

France's own version of the Red arrows on our first evening

Rock-pooling on the pink granite coast

Enjoying Croque Madame in the Harbour Bar

Amazing rock formations

Mer-people...

...and a little yarn-therapy on the beach!

Felty fun

This last week of the summer holidays we got crafty with wool and made a felted picture

We decided on greens and blues, and after having some silly moments with the wool tops...

we decided that a sheep theme would be apt-

18 years

Today I will have been married for 18 years

it's been a full and happy 18 years, full of ups and downs, 3 children, 4 house-moves, a large number of pets and one life-threatening illnes. And it's been the best years of my life!

We celebrated with a family meal at a local pizza restaurant-happy days!

Baby blanket

My friend Etty is due to have her first baby any day now, and I wanted to knit something special for the new arrival. Having worked on this project for three months I am very relieved it's finally finished

the pattern is Elven Pixie Baby Blanket by Tall Gal Knits and can be found on Ravelry

I am pleased with the result- not too easy, but not too taxing either. Hope the baby likes it!