Happy New Year!

Well hello there! Long time, no see. It's been over a month since my last post and a lot has happened in the intervening time. We've had Christmas, my birthday, New Year. and then E's 21st birthday. I'm all celebrated out. L was home for 2 weeks and E for a month, so it's been lovely. I took E back to Bristol yesterday in time for her exams, which gives me a short interval to clean the house etc. before R and I go away for a few days. In the interest of clearing my camera, here is a summary of our festive season in photo form:

Taking E for lunch at 'The Real Greek' in Bristol when I collected her before Christmas. It was yummy but the portions were huge - next time, we plan to share!

Our Christmas tree. For once, it was the perfect shape - it's almost become a tradition in our house that the tree either has to balloon over the back of the sofa, bulge weirdly on one side, or have a strange, bald section near the top. This year's, however, was the perfect size and conical shape ........ it dropped like a b*****d though, so you take your pick!

 My Christmas Eve cast on: 

 Our festive jigsaw. This one wasn't new; we did it a couple of years ago, but J was here at the time and it was finished before we could blink!

 Our Christmas day walk through Bagnor, ending up at Donnington Castle:

 Hamish toasting himself in front of the stove:

 My birthday picnic. I say that L had 2 weeks off for Christmas - actually, the only day that she had something booked in court was on my birthday. It also happened to be in Hastings (4 hours by train!). I got up early, prepared her a packed lunch and dropped her off at the station. We had decided to celebrate the following day, so E settled down for some revision and R decided we should go for a quick drive in Bridget. We packed a picnic, left E a sandwich and set off for an hour. It wasn't particularly sunny, but it was so lovely to get out and blow away a few cobwebs.

When we arrived home, L phoned. She had got as far as London (and luckily hadn't boarded the Hastings train) when the solicitor called to say that the case had been postponed as the judge was ill. She popped into her flat to drop off some stuff and then came straight home again. We therefore managed to celebrate my birthday on the day itself. There was bowling:

 ...... and a trip to the cinema. I loved this:

Finally, there was an Indian meal and a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Now, I can't remember if I have mentioned this before or not: L is a fan of the old D&D, and a couple of years ago when we went on a sailing holiday, she took along her stuff with the intention of introducing us to the game. The first thing you have to do is 'design' your character. Well, it was after a long day and within minutes R was fast asleep, snoring loudly. E was thoroughly underwhelmed by the idea and only got as far as naming her character 'Boredy McBored Face'. After a couple of hours, I was the only one with a fully formed character, showing even the semblance of enthusiasm. Forward 2 years and we gave it another bash. Admittedly, L and I had to design the characters for R and E, but E did go so far as to give hers an alternative name ..........ladies and gentleman, I give you Paella Toss-cobble! Over a couple of evenings, we got as far as level 2, and I think that may be it until next Christmas!

 Hello deer!

 My baby turned 21:

We celebrated by driving into London with a 3 point plan: lunch at The Gate, go shopping for a watch, and then a trip to the theatre to see Agatha Christie's 'Witness for the Prosecution' in the evening.

The food at The Gate was yummy. It's usually a veggie/vegan restaurant, but to encourage 'Veganuary', the whole menu on her birthday was vegan. I had a selection of wild mushrooms on a risotto cake with a creamy cep sauce and lemon and truffle oil. E had the same.

 Polenta chips and salad, with L's burrito in the background:

 R's aubergine escalope with kale:

  There was a whole selection of vegan puddings to choose from too. Here is R's chocolate bomb:

My hazelnut mille feuille:

... and L and E both chose vegan tiramisu:

 

E had decided that she would like a watch for her main present. She had looked online and had a vague idea of what she wanted. We walked miles down Oxford and Regent Street and various other parts of London, but nothing grabbed her fancy. It was useful in that it clarified what she did and didn't like, so we called it research and grabbed some supper before the play. Incidentally, I took her into town for a haircut 2 days later and she found a watch she loved at the nearest jewelers to our house! It's an eco-drive analogue watch, solar powered so she doesn't have to worry about changing the battery and it suits her perfectly.

Here are a few of the sights from our great watch hunt of 2019:

This was the play we saw and it was indeed 'criminally good'. It was performed in the County Hall on London's South Bank - think Ken Livingstone and the GLC building! It was worth going for the building alone, both it and the play were glorious. Set in a courtroom, you could pay extra and sit in the jury box. One member of the audience was actually the foreman of the jury and had to stand and deliver the verdict! As we bought last minute tickets - E wasn't sure whether she would be in Bristol or not - we were in the circle, but the view was excellent.

 

Finally, a trip to see this at our local cinema. Given that Ralph Fiennes was playing Antony, I had high hopes. We were sadly disappointed - E declared it a 'snoozefest' and we had to agree. I thought that Hamlet was supposed to be the longest play, but this gave it a run for its money. The last time I saw this play was in the 80s with Anthony Hopkins playing Antony and Judi Dench as Cleopatra. I remember it being much better. The only redeeming feature was when R pointed out that Fiennes had a way of standing that was reminiscent of Rigsby in 'Rising Damp' (I'm showing my age here!). He stood with hands on hips, nodding his head repeatedly. You could almost hear the cry of 'Miss Jones!'. He did it a lot, and once you'd noticed it it was impossible to take him seriously.

Well, that's all for the moment. I hope you all had the merriest of Christmases and wish you all love, light and peace for 2019.

Toodle pip for now. x

Model villages, willow, photography, and Handel

Christmas greetings from here on the riverbank. E will be home from uni soon, so this is likely to be my last post before the big day. December seems to be flying by and we still haven't bought our Christmas tree. Tomorrow is the day for that, and maybe to buy some outdoor lights. We had some years ago, but failed to replace them when needed. Consequently, our house looks a little Scroogey compared to the neighbours'! 

I don't want to go as far as the house down the road that looks like something from 'Deck the Halls', but a few token lights in the crab-apple tree I could live with. 

I have been enjoying all the Vlogmas podcasts on You Tube, annoying R with my Winter Wonderland CD in the car, opening my yarny advent calendar, and lighting my candles. Most of the shopping is done, so I'm all ready to look after my girls when they come home. Both of them have been working really hard, so I just want to take care of them for a while.

Here then are my photos for this month:

A trip to Bourton on the Water in the Cotswolds. There was so much to do here that we didn't see everything. We plan to return in the summer:

 They had a gorgeous model village:

There was also a fantastic charity shop. Lovely things at reasonable prices, which isn't always the case. I bought a sweet watercolour for the princely sum of £2.50. I already had a suitable frame, so it's now hanging in our stairwell, reminding me of our day out whenever I pass it.

Next was a trip to Bristol with my friend, S. We started the day at Carluccio's which does a fantastic vegan breakfast - borlotti beans on ciabatta with wilted spinach, griddled courgettes and tomatoes. YUM!

 After pottering round the Christmas markets, we visited M Shed to see this year's photography exhibition.

 S bought a postcard of our favourite:

 We finished the day with mocktails at The Cosy Club:

E had an essay deadline, so I did my Deliveroo act and stopped by briefly to give her a pizza before driving home.

My advent calendar. The miniskeins are going into my cosy memory blanket each day. I might make some scrappy socks with the leftovers.

 A willow workshop at the local museum. The large willow wreath is now wrapped in ivy on my front door. Unless you happen to know that I actually made the willow circle, it looks a bit sad!

 A trip to Bath to collect E and take her back to Bristol. She had a busy day. She has taken up Ballroom and Latin dancing and had a competition in Bath in the morning. She then had to return to Bristol for a concert in the evening. As we were going to the concert, and Bath was en route, we collected her. We dropped in here for lunch which was very nice. I tried banana blossom 'fish' and chips and, I know I haven't eaten fish since 1984, but it tasted just like it to me!

 A photo of our concert ticket. Isn't that a great acronym?!

 My advent candle, bought at Gloucester Cathedral earlier this year:

 R bought last minute tickets for this. We seem to have caught every cold going recently. R caught one at work, E at uni and L in London. Then we all got together for L's birthday and swapped viruses. It was my turn to feel rough on December 5th. I'd made a vegetable stew and was planning an evening on the sofa with my book and a Lemsip. Then R rang me to tell me that he had tickets and could I meet him at the cinema in an hour and bring a picnic. I was a little unenthusiastic, but it's testament to how good the play was that it was all worthwhile. I feel I may have annoyed some of the audience by coughing and sneezing through most of it though!

 Trying my hand at the 'quilt as you go' method. I loved it.

According to R, Christmas doesn't begin until he has heard Handel's 'Messiah'. For his birthday, I bought tickets for a performance at the Sheldonian in Oxford. We had dinner at Edemame followed by a vegan mince pie and coffee at Blackwell's before the concert.

The concert was excellent. I haven't been in the Sheldonian since L's graduation and I had forgotten how good the acoustics are. In true George II style, we all stood for the Hallelujah Chorus and the choir, although relatively small in number, belted it out like champions. It brought a lump to my eye!

Well, that's all for this week. May I take this opportunity to wish everyone a joyful, peaceful Christmas. I'll see you on the other side.

Toodle Pip for now. x

I Have Internet, People!

Well, Richard Branson's ears must be on fire the amount that I have cursed Virgin Media over the past 6 weeks. Not having a smart phone (mine is a hand me down from E and it's actually her last but 1 phone!) I rely on my laptop for checking emails etc. Our internet has been intermittent for the last 6 weeks and completely non-existent for the past week and a half. I didn't mind it for a while; it made a nice change being comparatively cut off from the outside world. It started to irk me when I began decorating L's room and couldn't have my usual Audible playing in the background. I worried that people would have emailed me and think that I was ignoring them, and then the cherry on the cake: I traveled to Oxford to attend a colourwork workshop at the Oxford Yarn Store, only to find that they had cancelled it ...... by email. It wasn't their fault, and I did end up having a lovely day doing a bit of Christmas shopping, but still. Their customer service also sucks. After spending quarter of an hour listening to pop music, you eventually get through to someone in India who can only say that there is a problem in your area (we know!) and give us a completely fictitious date when it will be repaired. We know it is fictitious because the said date came and went 6 times (yes, we kept ringing India!), and eventually they admitted that it was probably made up. It wasn't their fault, so there was no point taking out our frustration on them, but it was difficult when there was no way of contacting anyone in the UK to find out what the problem actually was. We were just on the verge of changing providers when it miraculously returned. We will probably swap anyway as we are just too annoyed. 

Anyway, rant over. Sorry.

Here then are the photos from the past month that have been languishing on my camera waiting to be uploaded:

A day trip to Abingdon for lunch and a potter round:

 Raiding the veggie patch for our Hallowe'en pumpkin. The jar is some pumpkin butter - one of the presents that our lovely neighbours brought us back from America for cat sitting. It's yummy.

 Carving said pumpkin - it made some of the best pumpkin soup we've had in ages.

A trip into London to attend this:

 

It was held in the Central Hall in Westminster. I bought a Coop Knits book of patterns and 3 skeins of yarn, one of which is now a hat.

 

The Central Hall was opposite Westminster Abbey, so I joined the queue to get in and paid my respects to Stephen Hawking - he is in illustrious company, sandwiched between Newton and Darwin.

 R works just down the road, so I popped in to meet up with him before we went for dinner. His office has quite a view: 

 It's also a great place to catch the sunset:

 This is where we went to eat. To be honest, I wouldn't really recommend it; both of us were disappointed with our meal.

My autumn view from the kitchen window:

 

Our friendly woodpecker:

 More painting. I finished the actual walls etc. quite quickly. There is a run of 8 cupboard doors down one wall though that is taking me forever. 

 Having fun with Bosh! Bowls:

 A paint your own Christmas decoration workshop at our local museum: 

 Remembering how tricky it was to paint the tiles last time, I kept my designs quite simple. Here they are before firing:

 A trip to the theatre. It was okay, but not the best play we've ever seen:

 A trip to Bristol to catch E between essays!

As it was Remembrance Sunday, we were lucky to get there just in time to pay our respects with 2 minutes' silence at the war memorial. For obvious reasons, I didn't use my camera then, but I really like the soldier silhouettes that have been on display around town:

 R was desperate to see The Great Britain, so we humoured him. He was thrilled to discover that the tickets are valid for a year ....... E and I less so!

 After knitting L a pair of Pride socks a while ago, I managed to squeeze a pair for E out of the leftover yarn by adding contrasting heels, toes and cuffs:

 The Harvest Hat, made with one of my Yarnporium  purchases. Weird lighting, sorry.

 Finally, a photo of the yarn store where my workshop didn't take place! It is a lovely shop though.

Well, that's all for the moment. Perhaps I'd better take the opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2019. Well, you never know with our internet! Enjoy the weekend.

Toodle Pip for now. x