I Won!

During December I followed the Garden Bloggers' Advent Calendar and was amazed that I actually managed to work the answer out from the anagram of letters that I had accumulated over the 24 days.  I was even more amazed when I won!  And yesterday my prize arrived in the post - this wonderful book, which was the answer to the anagram.  

It is a perfect book for winter nights as it is full of lots of little sections with all different snippets of information in.  I started it last night and know I'm going to really enjoy reading it, so thank you Sally for creating the puzzle and for my lovely prize.

I hope you all have a good end to the year and I wish you all a very happy, peaceful and prosperous 2011, it's been lovely getting to know you.

Nearly Ready for Christmas

We finally got real, proper snow here last weekend.  This is what my garden looked like at the beginning of the week.
 

I couldn't get into the greenhouse for several days, but fortunately the little paraffin heater kept going without requiring a top-up and everything in there seems to have survived fine without me.

Every year I end up racing around for Christmas at the last minute, and this year is no exception.  The snow hasn't helped that, but I think that finally I am nearly done.  The house is cleaned, the food is bought, the tree is up and the presents are nearly all bought. Of course I haven't wrapped anything yet and I still need to make the mince pies but there's still about 36 hours left isn't there!   Before I get wrapping though I think I should sample the chocolate biscuits, after all it would be wrong to offer them to guests without testing the quality first wouldn't it?!

I hope you all have wonderful Christmases and wish you all lots of happiness and peace in 2011.

Not Quite A Hat ..................

My granny taught me to crochet when I was about 9 and every so often I get an urge to crochet something. Usually what happens is that I buy the wool, start off ok, then it all goes wrong and I lose the desire so the wool gets put away and that's the end of that project!  Last weekend I decided to crochet myself a hat and found a pattern on the internet. I tried for ages to make a hat that fitted my head, but my lack of forward planning let me down, as the wool that I'd bought was a different thickness to the one in the pattern and the crochet hooks I had were different sizes too.  After many hours of crocheting and unravelling I gave up.  But then I had another idea - I'd make myself some arm warmers  as I get cold hands when I'm working on the computer but can't work in fingerless gloves.   This time I didn't have a pattern but just worked the size out as I went along.  They're not perfect (I'm not even quite sure they're the same size as each other!), but they are unique.  Initially I could only wear them when I was sitting down as they fell off when I walked, but thanks to some shearing elastic I can now walk in them too!

I don't think they'll start a new fashion trend, and I won't be making anymore, but they're bright and cheerful and will keep my arms and hands warm when I'm working.  (I couldn't photograph them both, logistics of a camera and not enough hands, but there is a pair really!).

Splash of Colour - December

Here is my Splash Of Colour for December, hosted by Silverpebble.  There are also some bright and cheery photos on the Splash of Colour Flickr group.

I was quite amazed at how much colour there still was in the garden at this time of year:

 1.Christopher Marlow frosted   2.Orange Rosehip   3.Cotoneaster Berries

4.Clematis Freckles   5.Choisya    6.Rose Thorns

7.Red Rosehip   8.Paperbark Cherry   9.Christopher Marlow in the snow

 It's bitterly cold here but we have escaped with less snow than most of the rest of the country.  Hope you're all managing to keep warm.