They swam and they swam

I have 10 goldfish under this chandelier of ice,poor little things

Fool that I am

Almost froze my bones over the weekend with only a fan heater . The heating engineer came 8 a.m 0n the dot , pressed the reset button and hey,ho the boiler fired .

What do I know about boilers? a bit more than I did yesterday.

I decided to go a walk yesterday in the sub zero temperature on the basis that I would be warmer when I came back in . it worked .

As I was walking there was a wonderful smell in the air of pine,conifer and wood smoke . The sun was shining, it really was magical , and last night when the sun was setting the snow and sky were pink with the sunset .

The picture of the bird table is an early christmas present from one of my sons .Too big to wrap!!

2.30 pm Tuesday the coach will pick up those bound for New York .

Take a second look at your christmas cards, lovely pictures to convert to applique. Inspiration by the bucket load.

Out of the mouth of babe,s

Anyone who reads my blog will know I,m waiting for the plumber, It has bought back memories of an incident when I was living in Cyprus.

The taps for turning the water on and off were outside . If it was a block of flats there could be lots of taps .

Boys were a real pain, they would fill balloons with water to throw at each other. My friend was always calling over her balcony "Dimitri take your friends somewhere else for water and leave those taps alone " It always fell on deaf ears .

One day when I was with her she said "Right, I,m going to take a wrench down and turn the main tap off" down she went , I stood looking over the balcony waiting to see what would happen .About 8 boys stood looking at her wielding this spanner and turning the water off, one little angel voice says "Are you the PlumBer" with great accent on the letter B, I nearly fell over the balcony laughing . I shall never forget the seriousness of the question .

Up the creek again

I,m not unhappy but I do keep having really bad days just lately . These are the things I,ve replaced recently , the iron , kettle .toaster.the oven door fell to pieces and now my 2 yr old boiler has packed up .

Here in England we are in a freeze and this happens to me .

I consoled myself with 2 slices of fresh baked bread , spread thickly with butter and a mug of hot chocolate , now I,m going to bed with indegestion .

I feel really miffed so I,m not going to wash up the pots or put them in the dish washer so if I die of frost bite or hyperthermia in the night whoever finds me first will say "did she always live like this" /

My Owls

Do you like my little owls?
These are the owls Robyn who,s blog is Daisy chains designed .
Robyn invited me tojoin her get together for the owls, these are my contribution . they are approx,. 3" high .


This was my contribution to the sewing circles Faith lunch yesterday .All went well until it came to a box of chocolates . someone must have had them as a present last year, enough said !!!

I seem tobe in a pattern at present of waking at 4am inthe morning . It doesn,t bother me, the music is good on the radio , and sitting in bed all cosy reading or doing a crossword is bliss . I get up make tea then enjoy the peace of being in my own little world of comfort reflecting on various issues . By 6 o.clock I,m usually ready to snuggle down for another hour before the day begins .


This time next week my son and his wife will be spending christmas in New York . Sounds lovely . The hotel is near to Macy,s , even better!!!

Blog eyed but happy

I have been blogging on and off most of the afternoon, and considering it is now 8 pm most of the evening .

I have caught up with a lot of blogs I looked at in the past, found a couple of friends I thought I,d lost.

I have spent most time looking at http://daisyquilts.blogspot.com Robyn has a wonderful site and she is so generous with her tutorials . If you like crafting please pay her a visit , it will be enjoyable . I do have a lot and I mean a lot of bags around where I sit at night doing a bit of this and a few more sts,. in that but I,m going to forget all those things and make one of Robin,s little owls . I will post it about Friday .

I have made the first stage of the buckeye sweets to take to the Faith lunch tomorrow , I must now away to the kitchen to stuff dates with marzipan .

Gathering pace

On Thursday it is the faith lunch at my sewing group, I shall be searching the blogs for a recipe that is a little different . A few days ago I found a recipe for something called Buck Eyes .so I shall be making some of them, they are something I have not seen before . They will be my sweet contribution , the search is on for a savoury .

Whew!!!

I,m finally getting caught up with the christmas panic , I,ve sent the presents off, finished the knitting and some other trivial bits I promised I,d do . I put my trees up and decorated them .

I,ve decided when it,s time to put the frivolous bits and pieces away again I,m going to make another shelf cover like the christmas one I have here , but not in christmas fabric but something with roses.

Because of the candle lamp being right in the forefront of this picture you cannot see my china cat holding the fabric mouse,s tail down with her paw.

These two christmas bits on my kitchen windowsill were fantastic bargains in the last year winter sale at the garden centre , My son came to see me last Saturday , I was pointing out to him what bargains they were . "Only £1 each I said , how much do you think the original price would have been "? such a cynic ! " 89 pence he replied , needless to say I didn,t tell him anything else

Rudolph the red faced reindeer

Do you remember I wrote that I had been into the loft to get the christmas decorations down only to find rudolph had been chewed on his bottom by a mouse?
His surgery is now complete ,and he has a blanket to preserve his dignity,Look at his next picture to see his recovery, in fact click on his picture .
His eyes are missing , they were 2 small beads,so if you see a mouse with 2 small beads either round his neck or on his ears just tell him or her we wantthem back please .

Busy but Happy

Today I went off to town to buy stuff I cannot get in the village where I live, things like lambs liver , faggots , avocados , really fresh nuts and dried fruit , if I had to rely on the village shop,well !!!! .
Tomorrow I will post a before and after picture of my reindeer . I can just imagine that mouse .
I,m going to sit and cut papers for a quilt in the English method of paper piecing. the quilt is in a very old copy of Ausralian patchwork and quilting . It will keep me busy when I go to the family at christmas , tacking over papers and hand sewing.

Desperate

I,m desperate to do some sewing , I have cut strips today at the sewing afternoon hoping I can get a head start at the weekend , at present I,m knitting and doing just fiddly bits that are quite nice but it isn,t like getting stuck into a project .

We had a good afternoon at the sewing group , lots of giggling and laughing, some nice show and tell .and swopping of patterns and ideas .

I went into the loft over my garage yesterday to sort out christmas decorations and what do you know ! a cheeky mouse had bitten into my reindeers bottom . I had put lentils in the stuffing to make it stand nicely, You would wonder how they could smell the lentils through thick plastic wrapping . Well the reindeer is going to have a patch on his posterier . It is a Santa with a reindeer either side of him . I cannot bear to throw it away

I,m sure like every one else I cannot believe it is christmas again already.