Midwinter Magic

Regular readers will have seen this picture before on my blog but bear with me ..


Just LOOK what happened between myself and Emma of Silverpebble!
We had arranged to meet but rain stopped play...well actually snow..deep deep snow so we posted each other the gifts we made for our meeting......



Both seedheads.
I had been experimenting with the shape in embroidery and thought I'd try a brooch.
We hadn't discussed it, and hadn't even said we would be sending them but both received them today. In fact as I was e mailing to thank her the postman knocked on my door with her parcel.
Emma has made me an exquisite silver seedhead brooch.
SILVER!
Its gorgeously delicate and the silver is so white and somehow soft. I sent her a felt and velvet brooch on the same theme.
I used her pictures for this and couldn't get them the right way up until I pinned them together in a collage. To see her original photos and her much better version look at her blog.
I feel so lucky. Thank you so much Emma.

I thought I'd share this photograph..its a lamp post outside a house in the woods.
Covered in snow like that reminded me of Narnia and I expected to see Peter Susan Edmund and Lucy in their furs coming towards me.
Maybe I did.


If you click on the next picture and look very closely, you might see little pinpoints of light...

they are the eyes of the poor sheep in the snowy fields.

I am getting a bit fed up of the bleak midwinter now, enough of the prettiness, too much cancelling of the felt group, but at least when I've been out walking in sub zero temperatures I can justify eating leek and potato soup and crumpets with melted Stilton cheese.

Yum.

White out....white in.

(This is a post for me to remember the most snow we've ever had.)



The road out of the village

the road in

the means of getting in or out

garden

front view

front path

Milkmen rule!

Touching the void?

Oh my goodness..I went for a walk today.
Did I say a walk?
I really mean a slide..a totter... a slip.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. My husband went off with a friend to the Irish music session 30 miles away and I went out with his wife.
Up the road then down a public footpath which goes through the grounds of a beautiful house. Well I just hope they weren't in because I was clinging to the ivy just outside their window,grimacing with the effort, then when the ivy ran out I was hanging onto their laurel, then their extremely posh car, and instead of using the correct route we took a shortcut through the shrubbery which was too thick for the snow therefore too thick really for a shortcut.
We attained the canal bridge but had to use our backsides to slip down on to the canal towpath all the time wondering if we would end up in the ice, or under it and clinging to the wall, the stile, the barbed wire, the prickly bushes ...each other..the dog..
Of course all this was accompanied by hysterical laughter...and fear..
There was no going back .
Two hours later we sat and drank tea and congratulated ourselves.

Janus

Looking backwards and forwards like the two faced Roman god.
On New Years Eve the last pictures of 2009 were taken in that most detested place 'The Trafford Centre' where we had to go to look at something. On the way to John Lewis we spotted this....*


Popped inside and I'm sure you'll agree its a spectacular window display. This is only a fraction.



I'm sorry the photo is blurred..my camera doesn't have a 'Shopping Mall' setting.
(Neither do I for that matter and was glad to get home)

*I have just been reminded that I had seen a photo of these machines before on Pats Blog Altering Thoughts. Hers is a much better photograph, and she did some great things with it. I even commented .It didn't sink in though. Must eat more fish.

Today, 2nd January, after a heavy snow storm and what looked like a bit of a thaw we went for a late afternoon walk in the woods.The soft looking snowy covering had frozen solid. It was very pretty but pretty skiddy too. We just about kept our feet.

When do you take your Christmas decorations down?
I suppose that depends on when you put them up.
I do the traditional thing and won't be taking mine down until 12th Night, 6th January. I put them up after the last Sunday in Advent and take them down at the Epiphany.
I don't have time to get fed up of them.
And finally what do YOU call it?
Two-thousand-and-ten or Twenty ten?

This Years Mosaic

Its good to think that this time last year I didn't know the felt brooches existed.
Then I found them in my head.
I wonder what will fall out of that space in 2010?
It makes me wonder.
I wish you all a very Happy New Year.


UPDATE:On the last day of this strange year the difficulty we had that started in September has been resolved in a better way than we could have imagined.
Thanks be to God.

Reflections

In the quiet days between Christmas and New Year I am taking some time to read and reflect.
What am I reading?
Blogs of course.
I have a big pile of books to get through too, but I read blogs on my laptop on my knee in the evenings, and occasionally peep over the top at whatever's on TV.

There are blogs I have been reading and commenting on since I first knew what blogs were.
There are blogs I have visited because I have received lovely comments from their writers.
Some blogs I read and never bother to comment on because they never reply.
There are funny blogs, beautiful blogs, down to earth blogs, informative blogs, blogs from distant parts of the world where their everyday life is so different from ours.
There are bloggers who I now consider good friends even if we haven't met yet.

I have recently taken the time to discover Lilylovekin Tales. I popped in briefly on occasions to reply to comments but decided I would have a really good read and found a compelling blog with beautiful photographs and a simple and honest style.
A real treasure.

I have had a tremendous amount of pleasure from blogging as well as support and encouragement. It has been a strange and difficult year with some exceptional highs but many lows, and without the blog I would have found it very difficult at times. I continue to get lots of lovely visitors despite my obsessive attention seeking and my moaning.
Thank you.

Today I had the best fun that can be had from blogging...a meeting of the 'house on fire' variety with a fellow blogger. I traveled for an hour to Hebden Bridge, to meet Helen and her daughter who had traveled an hour from the other direction.
We sat down in a cafe at 11am and left at 3pm having consumed coffee, lunch, cake, tea and talked non stop.
And I forgot to take a photograph.
Never mind.
I have a bright and lovely picture in my head.

Boxing Day

Did you all have a good day?
We did, with visits from our sons and my Mother.
But boxing day is my favourite day of the year and I never arrange to go anywhere or do anything in particular.
Even the elusive Mummycat is relaxed and sitting still for a picture.





I am relaxing, watching TV and enjoying the calm and tidy atmosphere.
The little tiny tree looks very pretty in the front window.


Its the first Christmas for the newly decorated room and I thought I'd compare it with its former state this time last year. In the third picture in This Post
(It shows my Moose card from Carol Santora last year.
Carol has been a 'pen friend' for over 12 years. Her mother-in-law was in England and I met her one day in a Gallery where I was selling my sketch books. She took one for Carol with my address and we started writing to each other. Now we both have blogs so sadly we don't really write as such.)
No Moose card this year but look what we had instead. All the way from Kennebunk, Maine.


When Willow died in April Carol did this portrait of her in soft pastels.
I admired it on her blog and it brought tears to my eyes.
So can you imagine how I felt when it arrived here on Christmas Eve?
It was a most generous gift from Carol, beautifully framed and ready to hang.
Its from a photograph but it is so much more than the photograph, it has more life and depth.
It captures the personality of Willow.


We hung it immediately in the perfect spot.
Its a welcome addition to the room, a lovely reminder of a much missed pet, and a mark of the generosity of a friend far away.
I hope Carol and I will meet one day.

Other Christmas gifts were far more fleeting.
Oops..almost gone..mmmmm.....marzipan. I've always loved it.

My husband bought me this Guinea pig calendar.....

He knows me so well.