December...ing

 Our December celebrations revolved mostly in the making and consuming of food, that and enjoying our first Christmas in our new house.

Collecting - holly from a very heavily berried tree in the long field.

Singing - carols outdoors at the Christmas eve Carol Service conducted in the graveyard. 

Loving - our family tradition of having a cheese fondue on Christmas Eve. The children get so excited about it!

Lavishing - ourselves with a chocolate and raspberry roulade made by the big girl.

Laying - the table for Christmas Dinner. I love getting out my grandmas cutlery set especially for the occasion.

Enjoying - the longevity of these red carnations. In fact, the first lot of holly faded and this is the second batch but the flowers have soldiered on for 10 days.

Indulging - in hot chocolate spoons for stirring into hot milk. Meg loved making these inspired by Mamas Mercantile blog.

Gifting - a Christmas cake to my in laws in lieu of normal Christmas shopping. I made the cake in November and the girls loved decorating it for them.

Giving - the house a good tidy up after the deluge of paper and gifts.

Making - tiny snowman. Just when I thought, "What on earth are we going to do with these next few empty days?" - it snowed.

Feeling - blessed with the sunset to the end a wonderful Christmas in our new home.

I know Christmas has not been ideal for some families but for us, we are all safe, healthy and together.

Here's hoping you found some joy somewhere too.

Jo xxxxx

December...ing

Bottling - up my sloe Gin from earlier on in the season ready to give.

Repeating - the process with Andy's damson wine which has cleared nicely.

Crocheting - some Christmas bauble decorations to gift.

Pattern link for this one is here.

Feeding - my Christmas cake to give as a family gift. I even found a box and cake board in Home Bargains to make it easy to transport. Time to decorate soon.

Making - a serious amount of making has been happening here in lieu of Christmas shopping in shops. I have knit up lots of scraps into hats for children, family and friends.

Knitting - a new pattern I treated myself to. A joy to knit, wear and gift.

Trying - another new pattern which was free on ravelry. A neck snood for my brother. He has copius amounts of thick long hair so he never wears a hat - in fact we have the same hairstyle! I thought this was perfectly manly.

Whizzing - up some hand made gift tags from Christmas fabric and ribbon off cuts.

Making - a churchyard wreath from our hedgerow holly. So many berries this year.

Supplying - Andy with hot drinks and food transported in a basket to his hedge laying location, he is getting closer and closer towards the house each weekend.

Baking - mince pies. In our family two people love them (Heidi and I) and two people loathe them (Andy and Megan)

Decorating - our new house because we were just too excited to see what the tree would look like in our new front room. I also bought a fireplace swag last year in the sales with the new inglenook in mind.

Trying - on my Christmas day dress which is the Sorrel dress by Jennifer Lauren in this luxurious viscose crepe by Atelier Brunette. It has a subtle festive shine and room to eat a huge dinner!

Mending - my jeans again. On a more frugal note I have continued to add to the thin patches and over sew where I have put previous ones.

Leaving - you with a kitchen-window winter pastel, moody sunset today.

Any seasonal plans for you?

Thanks for calling in. Jo xx 

Still keeping it outdoors

As a family we try to spend as much time as we can outdoors. Fresh air blows away a multitude of niggly arguments between sisters or frustrations of busy parents. Today for example, we had a rare non-windy day up here on the ridge so we set off across the field for some outdoor time.

We headed for our much neglected cabin. When we were building our house, we used it to sleep in at weekends but we haven't been in it  since early May. There has just been too much to do to move in.

It was full of spiders and needed a good airing so we lit the log burner inside to lift the dampness then went out for a run about while it got going.

It was a fresh, still day with just the oak leaves clinging on. Now is the time of year to spy all of the gaps in the fence and hedge boundaries that need repairing.

The girls lit an outdoor fire too so that they could toast marshmallows. It is one of their favourite things to do.

With high levels of sugary energy, they had an hour playing on the swing and the zip wire. This shot really does give you a sense of scale of the beautiful mature trees.

The sun started to go down and it got a bit nippier then I was ready for a roast pork dinner.

Happy Sunday everyone! 

The Great Outdoors

 We have been trying to get outside as much as we can while the weather is still pleasant, the hedges are still full and the nights are light.

This is the Lawley in south Shropshire, the hill you see from our house when I show you the view. We tried to find our house from the top but we could only see the general direction rather than our actual home.

At the top there is a 360 degree vista of glorious Shropshire countryside.

It is one of those walks where you think you are at the top, then there is another little hill...

...but it is not strenuous or too steep, just a lovely Sunday walk. 

We roped in a fellow walker to take a family shot. 

It has been a bit more rainy of late but walking with the dog is one of life's little pleasures which we will be indulging in this week while we are on a half term break.

Jo x