Sock Monkeys

Are the weirdest looking things aren't they? Anyway, I've secretly (ssshhhhh) been making a couple for Miss L and Mr A. They turned out a lot larger than I was expecting, I guess it depends on what socks you use or something ;-) I'm not sure how much I like them, but I think the children will so that's okay.

The black spotty is for Adam and the red with white hearts for Lucy.

Am I the only one who thinks they're scary?

Well, that's the last of the Christmas preparations I think - apart from making up some gift hampers I stupidly decided would be a good idea...

Have a good one! XXXX

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have a wonderful time.

You're Never Too Old

For Santa!

Thankfully, my little ones are not too old for the annual trip to visit Santa. Awwwwwwwww. Although Adam was desperate to see Santa, you can see he wasn't quite sure how 'cool' it was to have his photo taken with him.



Our Christmas cake is finished!

There was some of this...

and quite a lot of this...

until we had...this!

This is entirely Miss Lucy's own creation from start to finish - I only helped with the heavy, hot or particularly fiddly bits (oh, and the washing up). I think she's done a brilliant job. I'm reliably informed that the snowman that's centre front is Elvis Snowman. He has a rather nice black quiff which you can't see very well and his little fondant microphone is sitting in front of him. It's probably best not to ask who the others are... :-)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Almost Christmas

I feel I can mention the C word now that it's December. Time is marching on and I'm running out of it fast! I've got most of my shopping done, but nothing wrapped and my plans to make all my Christmas cards have been replaced by the purchase of several packs of ready made from Tesco. The children are desperate for the decorations to be brought down from the attic, but Dad is holding firm so far - I think he will weaken by the weekend.

The one thing we do have up is the Advent Calendar - Adam was so excited by the thought of a sweetie in the morning, I thought he would burst with anticipation! So, hopefully this time next week the tree will be up (how I hate putting those bloomin' lights on) and the tinsel draped artistically around my standard lamp ;-) I do love it when I've got all my Christmas 'bits' dotted around the living room and can sit of an evening with just the tree lights, maybe a festive candle or two lit and watch Miracle on 34th Street again and again. Aaaah blissssss. Of course, this isn't likely to happen, but a girl can dream.

My Open University course is going well. It's extremely challenging to say the least - we are heavily into scriptwriting for stage, film, TV and radio at the moment and let's just say, I've developed a new respect for the writers of Dr Who! I've an assessment that's due on the 19th and I'd really like to get that off early so I can concentrate on doing nothing for a week or so and just enjoy all the festive stuff. A couple of the ladies from last years course are also on this one with me - Ros and Rosa - and I have to say that I wouldn't be able to get through it without them, they are a lovely, talented and very supportive pair (have to put that bit in in case they get super famous and invite me to society balls and the like - lol).

No crafting has been done (yet again) and I really need to make a couple of sock monkeys before Santa comes - you can guess the recipients. As for the socks I was knitting for my mum..... socks, what socks?

I'm so envious when I read through all your blogs and you are all busy creating wonderful things. Maybe one day I will have an interesting pic of something to post - keep yer eyes peeled for the sock monkeys!

Catch Up

Since I haven't posted for a bit, here are some catch up photos.

Adam - 'potato mining'. I have to say he is a potato miner extrordinaire.



He's very thorough..



Meccano Master (or should that be Miss?). This was a tricky project.



A new apron from Ikea just begs to be used, don't you think?



Cranberry and white chocolate biscuits - yummmmmm.



And a big success for Lucy this month - she and her team came second at the Big Brain Book Quiz 2008. She was in a team of three from our local library and they were competing against 30+ other teams from Fife. They had a fantastic time and loved the whole experience. Their prizes included a voucher each for £25 to spend at Amazon. Yay! Well done Rosyth Library!

Miss Lucy is the best!! (no, not biased at all...)

Awards!

How exciting - I've received an award from the lovely Alis of Alis Clair, a very talented lady with (obviously) excellent taste! LOL. Thank you very much, Alis.



Now I need to nominate seven other blogs.....hmmmmmm. How can I choose, they are all brilliant. Okay, here goes;

Diane of The Sound of One Hand Knitting
Carol of A Stitch in Time
Sarah of Everything Stops for Tea
Kate of Kate's Quilting
Graeme of Grumblog
Karen of Tea and Cake (and the equally wonderful Pushing Pencil)
Val of Val's Musings

The rules for the nominees are:

1) Add the logo of the award to your blog
2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
3) Nominate 7 other blogs
4) Add links to those blogs on your blog
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs

I've also received another award from the lovely Sarah of Everything Stops for Tea, which I should have said thanks for already (sorry, Missus). Thank you Sarah, you luvverly wummin.



The rules are: SHARE THE LOVE!!! Share this award with all those blogs out there that you love. All the people who make you smile. All those that make you laugh. All those that make your day. All those that leave uplifting comments on your blog. **All I ask, is that you include a link to this post with the award and ask your recipient to do the same**

So, I nominate all the other blogs I love. Those I didn't nominate for the previous award; those that are on my list and those that I've neglected to add but do visit. You are all worthy of this and much much more. xxx

Is It That Time Already?

Just when I was happily procrastinating about the need to get some writing done, a parcel was delivered - all the course materials for A363 Advanced Creative Writing. Time to stop talking and sharpen my pencil :-)

Her Royal Pinkness Has Arrived

At long last I made my decision and my mum placed the order for the KitchenAid. A day later and she arrived. She was much more gorgeous in the flesh than I had imagined, and a wonderful shade of baby pink - the right choice after all.

I had a bit of trouble finding somewhere to put the KitchenAid as my kitchen is tiny, but I've squeezed it in beside the breadmaker! The photos don't do it justice, it's much nicer in 'real life'.




I can report that it made light work of two lemon drizzle cakes. Yum. I've also got a pasta attachment that I've yet to try out. I need to work up to these things.

Being her mother's daughter, Miss Lucy was next to try the new machine out and made this rather tasty and nicely decorated cake - I thought the little umbrellas were a particularly nice touch (in case you are wondering, it reads 'to the best mum and dad ever'). I still had to do the washing up though. Some things never change.

Firkling for Fun

Is that like Digging For Victory, do you think?

We have dug/firkled our first crop of potatoes ('earlies' which were put in a bit late). These were grown in the same two largish pots that we planted some in last year. Last years efforts were very tame compared to the motherlode of 2008 - 63 glorious specimens! We have another two large blue containers (just behind Lucy and Adam in the pic) to be harvested as well as some planted direct into the soil, unfortunately a lot of them were trampled by a hedge cutting man who doesn't recognise a potato plantation when he sees one, and they just didn't survive :-(



I boiled up a few of these beauties tonight and they were really delicious - had a real flavour to them. I think they were Duke of York. I really should write that sort of thing down for future reference. It's just as well the potatoes are doing well because the rest of the things I planted have mainly been eaten by something that likes carrots, peas, and lettuce. Grrrrrrr

Festival Frolics

Last week the children and myself went off on the bus to Edinburgh to visit the Book Festival. Lucy and Adam LOVE going on the bus so it was a real treat for them (I remember when going in a car was a treat. Oh dear, showing my age...) and of course we had to go over the Forth Road Bridge - much excitement looking out of the windows over the edge of the bridge to the waters way beneath us!!



We hung around the Book Festival for a bit exploring the bookshops, having a coffee (very expensive) and attending the free storytelling (I think Adam felt he was a bit too 'grown up' for that sort of thing - until the storyteller asked if she could use his 'name' in her story!).



There was some art at the book festival which consisted of a shed and some blue bins half buried in the grass. Miss Lucy was not impressed and said in a very loud voice that that 'was NOT art'. On leaving the book festival, she decided to take some 'artistic' photos (just to show the difference between 'art' and 'NOT art' you understand!). So here they are...

1.


2.


3.


Artistic moment over, we headed down to Princes Street to see what else was going on. There were a lot of film crews around as there was quite a lot of street theatre/performance - you can see a camera set up in the road just next to Lucy here. Just after I took this pic the one o'clock gun went off up at the Castle and frightened us half to death - we loved it!



We found some fire jugglers, escape artists, and a young man who could dislocate his shoulders at will - which thrilled Lucy and Adam no end (but not me - ewww!).



I just love the architecture in Edinburgh, and the atmosphere around festival time is just brilliant - no one cares if it rains!

Hamish came with us - he is quite the cultured coo you know.



We would have stayed much longer if it hadn't been for the weather. We ended up getting rather soaked and hungry and had to head away from the entertainment in search of sustenance and the bus home, but all in all a good day out.

Jam Time

Managed to make a few jars of raspberry jam this summer. It's not the cheapest way to get a jar of jam, but I still love making it.



I got about eight and a half jars from 4lbs of berries.

A rather blurry pic of the finished jam.

Eye Candy

I found some lovely pics of the pink Kitchen Aid Mixer on the Flikr Kitchen Aid Group (taken by Jennifer.lee who has some lovely pics of cupcakes too) which I've borrowed just to show you. I can feel myself swithering...



doesn't it look nice?



Pink, yes. But not too sugary pink...no?



Well, it's that or a white one.

Hey. At least I'm narrowing it down ;-)

Oh, and did I mention there is a special promotion at the moment whereby there's a free ice cream attachment thrown in with every purchase...

SO tempting.

Carry On Camping

Since I'm having problems with Virgin at the moment and can't send or receive any emails, and it's driving me MAD (grrrrr), I thought I'd post a few pics of a short camping trip we took recently (well, it keeps me amused :-) )

A couple of weeks ago we tried out our new tent and camped near Killin, at a nice little site five minutes walk from the shores of Loch Tay. After some initial discussion about which bits went where, we got the tent up with not too much trouble and went about the serious business of trying out the (new) stove and kettle and making a cup of tea. This proved successful much to my relief and I settled into our one deckchair while the others went exploring. It was pretty misty the whole day until a heavy bout of rain cleared things up nicely. Unfortunately, it also brought out the midges!

The following morning heralded a bright and warm new day.

Hamish was rather naughty on the whole trip and kept getting Mr Adam into trouble. He has been told he had better behave from now on (he is rather prone to mischeviousness).

Can you tell?

We walked in the woods...

Played...

Walked to the loch...

and visited some family of Hamish.

We weren't too far from our favourite place - the Scottish Crannog Centre. It is near Kenmore at the opposite end of the loch, so we took a trip along. It was still as good as ever.

Some fleece dyed with local plants.

Miss Lucy tried to make fire again - she does this every time we visit. It's really difficult to do, but she has managed to get some smoke going before!

Our trip was over all too soon, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. Even those of us who weren't that keen (having been camping all over Britain when small - no matter what the weather!) had a lovely time (that kettle was a lifesaver).

The Results Are In!

At long last the results for A215 Creative Writing are in. Unbelievably I got a Grade 2 Pass!!!!! This is good. I am one happy bunny. Especially as I had (in my wisdom) worked out that the best I could get would be a Grade 3! WOO HOO!

Have celebrated this evening with a trip to Borders, where I wandered around taking note of books to buy cheaper elsewhere, sampled a Starbucks beverage and bought a magazine and two pens. Who says I don't know how to live it up ;-)

And, just before I go, can I say a heartfelt Thank You to all my blogging and non-blogging friends who have encouraged me throughout my studying this past few months, I really couldn't have done it without you. XXX

Breaking News!

Guess what? My lovely mum has decided she wants to buy me a Kitchen Aid mixer. Yes, it's true. Woo hoo! There's only one problem - I can't decide which colour to choose...

Classic white perhaps?



or maybe the ever popular red? (my sister has just got this one from mum and it's GORGEOUS)



I quite like the apple green,



but I do have a strange hankering for this pink one. Strange, because I'm not a 'pink' sort of girl...



Oh, I just can't decide. All of the shops I've looked in only stock the black, red or cream and I'd really like to see the colours 'in the flesh' before I decide. I mean, what if the pink one is a really sugary pink? I wouldn't like that at all. But, if it was a pale-ish pink, then that might be rather nice... Och well, it's not a really bad problem to have, is it? :-)