Happy New Year!

(Our lane on Christmas Day as we walked to meet up with family.  Very pretty but slippery I can tell you!)

 Hello again and Happy New Year!!  I really wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas but computer problems and then being a little off-colour for a few days prevented me getting here. 

(My DS and his cousin playing TV console games later in the day at my sister's house)

 I hope you all had a wonderful time over the Christmas period!! We had a lovely time with family and friends and I managed to get all the homemade gifts finished.

 This is a cross-stitch bookmark I made from a kit that I bought when we visited The Centre for Alternative Technology in the summer.  It's for a good friend of mine.  Making it made me realise why I haven't done any cross-stitch for some time - it's time-consuming, fiddly and frustrating!!  It came to life when I added the backstitch but I'm not very inspired to do any again soon. 

 I made about 125 of these peppermint creams a couple of days before Christmas.  It wasn't easy to keep count of them with my DS around and, of course, having to "taste test" them.  :-)

 Here are the family's gifts ready to be wrapped.

 A closer view shows the finished coasters clearer.  The peppermint creams are in celophane bags in the mugs.

 The church in the village is spot-lit over the Christmas period courtesy of the local hotel opposite. I took this photo on our way back home quite late Christmas Day.

Just before Christmas I won a giveaway run by the generous Miss Prickly and my package arrived today all the way from Oregon.  I was lucky enough to be the winner of one of 3 prizes offered - this lovely colourful wristlet.  A lovely extra pressie just for moi!!!

Tonight there are 15 of us meeting at a friend's house for a takeaway, then we are heading for the village to join the locals to see in the New Year.

See you all again in, what I pray will be, a happy and healthy 2011 for everyone.
Bye for now
Teresa x

Second Last Weekend Before Christmas!

Saturday am

Rehearsing with the Saturday Singers for a Welsh evening on Monday 20th (squeezed into a corner of the Fellowship Rooms because there was a children's party in the Chapel where we normally go).  We're singing 2 welsh songs: 'Suo Gan' and a carol that I can't remember the name to) .  None of us, except the choir master, speaks much Welsh so we've been struggling a bit with these.  I remember my sister telling me about the time a visitor to the hotel she worked at was asking her if she spoke Welsh. She told him she did and spouted out a long sentence to prove it.  He was quite taken in but all she had said was "Abergavenny, Monmouth, slow down, stop, service station" and various other Welsh words on our road signs.  He then proceeded to talk about well know Welsh TV series Pobol y Cwm but pronouned it in quite an unfortunate way that had us in stitches when she told us.

Saturday afternoon

Met up with a friend for mulled wine and a chat.  She's recently started a life coaching business that's beginning to reap rewards for her after putting in a huge amount of work. 

(one of DD's sweet little bunnies in the palm of her hand)

Sunday pm

DD picked me up to go to town.  Where we had a some lunch before heading to the shops for Christmas shopping.  I couldn't go in my car because a man was due sometime in the afternoon to replace the windscreen - I'd somehow developed a 6" crack in it during the cold spell!

 (A little knitting I work on when my eyes tire of tiny cross-stitches)

Before my OH picked me up to get back home in time for the first Carol Service of the season, DD showed me the baby bunnies that had been born to one of her rabbits just a couple of weeks ago.  Sooo cute!!

Back at work now for the last week before the 3 week break!!!! :-)  We had the news today that we were successful in our appeal and the planning permission  has been granted for the next stage of the job.  This means work for another 18 months to 2 years. I wish I was happier about it because I should be grateful to have a job and certainly wouldn't give it up unless I had to, but this job is not really what I want to be doing.

Bye for now
Teresa x

Third Last Weekend Before Christmas!

Just in case anyone is on tenterhooks to find out, you can breathe again now because I can announce that I had exactly a QUARTER of a snow day last week!!!! Sorry for shouting but a QUARTER!!! What am I supposed to do with that?  Do you know what I did? I CLEANED!! Sorry, I'll calm down now.

This is the scene as I drove to work one day last week.  Here we have freezing fog on the two lane road. The car said the temperature was -13!!!!!

 Things were a bit brighter as I neared the office on the single track road.

I'm not really angry - I had a lovely weekend starting with a quiz at the local pub on Friday evening (which my team won)! 

I finished my Christmas bell pull (above) to take to my quilting group where we also enjoyed a Hope Lunch (everyone takes a plate of food and we hope there'll be enough).  I didn't take any quilting to do, but concentrated on some cross-stitch for a Christmas present I'm hoping to finish by next weekend when I will see the recipient. Pics will have to wait until after Christmas so she doesn't see.

 On Sunday I dragged accompanied my OH to a local craft centre that has recently re-opened after a few years being closed.  Most of the crafts they sell here are made in Wales.  In a workshop at the back of the centre I found a room with lovely bags hung all around the walls, and shelves at the end piled with gorgeous fabrics (not new but recycled and reclaimed!). It was almost exactly as I envisaged my own fantasy workspace and I was so envious of the mysterious Cayt whose workshop it was.  I couldn't resist buying one of her lovely bags (the flower is a detachable brooch!).  OH and I stayed for coffee and cake and had a lovely chat with the owners who suggested I go back when Cayt is there and chat to her about her work.  I fully intend to take up the offer! I also want to look in the vintage clothes room that was closed on Sunday in order to tidy it up after they held a Craft Fair the day before.

To finish off, here's a pic of the (mostly) vintage Laura Ashley fabric I won on ebay recently.  There are 3 lots from the same seller here and with combined postage it came to less than £11.  The pieces are all different sizes but some are quite big.  The only one I am disappointed with is the lightest fabric 5 from the left.  I haven't looked closely yet but it seems to have a few marks on it and is not a very inspiring design to boot. ("to boot"??? - where did that come from?  I never say that!  I just had to look it up so if you're interested have a look)

Bye for now
Teresa x