Better late than never....

Despite a last minute panic that the duck I'd ordered from here, might be stuck for Christmas in the City Limits depot in Kidderminster (thank you to the manager who delivered them to daughter in Worcester although he was actually going to Wolverhampton, and to daughter who brought the parcel over even though they were also going out for the day in the opposite direction!),  everything did arrive for Christmas and was very much enjoyed.  The lovely flowers came from my delightful Brother-in-Law.  The lily has since come out and is the same colour as the roses.

If this quilt had a name it would be 'slapdash'  which would adequately descride the way in which it's been put together over the last two weeks to give to daughter for Christmas.  As it was, having decided to hand quilt, 'in the ditch', I had to finish the last few rows on Boxing day and give it back to her when they came yesterday for tea and to collect cat who'd stayed on when they went to friends.  (Just as well, as when they got home on BD evening, they found they had no water - fortunately, everything thawed without any obvious leak).

Anyway, she's delighted with it - excuse photos which don't do it justice, couldn't find anywhere, that wasn't too dark, to show it completely, hence rather awkward photo taken on stairs where it slipped off the stairlift rail at the last moment!  I couldn't get out to buy fabric for binding, so I folded borders over all the way round to finish it off.  The pink really lifts it, and I'm really happy with it.

Rain has abolished the snow and everything now looks muddy and grubby.  I must go out later for essentials, and H has invited someone for Friday lunch so must put my brain back into cooking gear when I'd been happily coasting along in 'left-over' mode.  Hopefully, it won't now snow between now and next Thursday and Friday when first M and then I have to go to the eye hospital - perhaps we could get a season ticket for the carpark!

Haven't attempted the Sales (- half tempted to ignore them but I do need bedding and towels amongst other things - we never seem to have enough since M came).  I'd like to just flop around reading my Christmas books and watching dvds and stuff recorded, but the snow and grit walked into the hall and kitchen needs attention and the duck carcass has to be made into soup, and what am I going to serve this man on Friday?  

It's daughter's birthday next week so I'll need to go out to find her something - mind currently a blank on that  subject, too!

Hope you all had a great Christmas and are now happily recovering!

Thank you to all the people that have consoled. commiserated, encouraged and made me laugh over the last year - I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and great New Year.

Jane xx

If you need to, you can get out ....

Having no alternative, I went out with the shovel before breakfast this morning and with help from daughter who arrived at 10.00, we managed to get the car up the cul-de-sac - H driving and daughter and I resorting to pushing on the worst bits as H isn't allowed to do such physical things.  Before we left for the hospital M asked where I'd been all moring and when I said I'd been digging the car out to take her to the hospital, she laughed and said she expected I was glad of the exersize!
We were hours at the hospital, but they've now decided that her sight is fast diminshing due to pressure on the optic nerve - so the cateract operation was pointless.  So it looks as if she will soon be completely unable to see.  She's being quite philosophical about it but we've yet to consider the practicalities,
Tomorrow, I hope to finish my Christams preparations - if I can move by then, I'm already stiffening up so I'm off to soak in the bath.  Hope you're having a rather more pleasant run up to Christmas!

Update

Had to cancel the hospital trip - main road is flowing merrily, but we can't get to it and we can't get M by wheelchair to daughter's car either (well we could if we dug out either the entire cul-de-sac and 200yds of lane, or all the pavements up to the main road).   H went to look at the grit bin that the Council has unhelpfully put half way down the steep lane, but we can't shift enough by bucket - and the road would need clearing first as there's about 6 inches of snow and still falling- and manged to fall over and cut his hand and thumb!  The hospital has said we can go tomorrow at the same time - optomists!

Foiled again ......

So.  I stocked the cupboards and the freezer and the fridge, I posted all the Christmas cards and the CT return, I checked that all the prescriptions were up-to-date, and then I thought, that's it, I can survive here without going out until the New Year if necessary, and I planned some more sewing and kniting.  I was even inspired to make a Clementine cake and a huge batch of soup - I was feeling quite pleased and inclined to let Christmas be acknowleged.  I didn't mind too much when it began to snow, and it wasn't very heavy anyway.
This morning M having refused to do anything about her eye all last week when travel was easy, decided that she must ring the hospital about it.   'Oh', said the woman on the phone,'you must come in at once - I'll phone you back.'
I went outside and swept clear the drive and sorted out the car and brought in the wheelchair and I said to H it wasn't really too bad to get the car out as the lane had been partly cleared.  And we waited, and waited until noon when they rang and said she must come on Wednesday.   As if summoned by some malignant force, it then started to snow and snow and snow, covering up all the bits I'd swept and covering the car and the lane, and bringing traffic on the main road to a standstill.
So now we wait to see if, by Wednesday, this lot will clear or get worse, and I'm very cross with the receptionist at the hospital that we phoned 10 days ago who more or less told us not to be so daft when we asked if we should bring M back.
Fortunately, daughter at home now until New Year so we could get her to mount a mercy mission if we can't get out - as long as the main road is clear.
Hope you're all safe and warm and don't have to venture out.

.

Stuck at (gn)'ome

I always forget how much I like knitting gloves, and the last week or so I've had plenty of opportunity for knitting.     M's cataract operation does not yet seem to have been successful - she maintains that she still can't see out of her right eye at all, despite the surgeon assuring us that it was very successful.  We wait to see whether it improves, but it means that her ability to do things for herself has been even less than usual.  Unfortunately, H did something rather silly which has aggravated his heart problem - temporarily I hope - but means that both of them have to be attended on at regular intervals and I've only managed to get out for the essentials.
The upside to this is that I been forced to re-think Christmas shopping and to do food and present shopping online, I've also had to use the internet to stock the freezer and make sure we have plenty in the cupboards against another lot of snow.   And I've set to and made rather more presents than I thought I'd have time for - most of which have been posted now thanks to a kind neighbour.
It hasn't been entirely plain-sailing as the internet connections have been terribly unreliable so I've been reading and commenting on blogs rather less often - often at speed so forgive me if a comment you received was full of errors or didn't make sense!
In case I hadn't got enough things to keep me occupied, a friend asked me to knit some decorations for the hospice where she works as a volunteer so several of these little chaps have gone off to a new home:

This one has stayed behind and I've promised to knit him a friend when I've done the Christmas cards and done some more to a quilt in progress. It's a  great pattern for using up small amounts of yarn as long as your stash has some yarn suitable for the beard.   The stash has done me proud when it comes to presents, too, and having finished a hoodie for baby E, I was pleased to find enough chenille type wool to make her a snowme:

So we may be getting some more snow, but we're well stocked, and Christmas can be managed even if snow stops the later deliveries (like Julie over at Little Cotton Rabbits, I was mindful of my Christmas not arriving in a van, hence the freezer stocking exercise), and most people will get their present and many of those will be handmade.  So, fingers crossed that H gets better not worse, we could now hibernate till after Christmas and I might even get more than one quilt made!
Welcome to Busybusybeejay  and Minnie,  so glad you've found me, I shall be popping over to your blogs soon.

Stop press:  It's gone very very dark and started to blow a gale.  Lots of wet snow rushing past the window now - hope you're all safe and warm at home .

Gnome and Snowmee are Alan Dart patterns. You can find them on his website here http://www.alandart.co.uk/pages/products

A winter's tale

The snow went away, but during the night the Frost giants came and separated us from the world........

Until the sun came out.

Fragments

Some weeks ago, Elaine, at Ted and Bunny, posted this and kindly said I could use the photo in my art project which is using architectural fragments as a basis for a collection of drawings.  I've really enjoyed my first attempt - done in pastel, and hope to try again with soft pencil.  Blogger refuses to post the second photo the right way round so please imagine it turned through 90 degees.  The current light has turned the colour rather more blue than the original.
This last few days have been very fragmented - we can just about get the car out if necessary, though the top of our cul-de-sac is very icy and no grit between us and the main road.  I've been doing small amounts of crafting, cooking, drawing and sewing  - and the inevitable end of year accounting has started to impinge again.  It also occured to me that I hadn't properly acknowledged the lovely give-away I won from Chrissie at Niminy Fingers:

This lovely little bird and its garland of bobbles are trying valiantly to brighten up my study - and making it even more obvious that I really must smarten up of all the pine shelving and cupboards with a good coat of white paint - now would be a good time except that I can't have the windows open - perhaps better wait for better weather.
I'm still slogging on with the slides that need converting - currently I'm in Spain in 1963!  The various and miscellaneous were great fun as one minute we were in a 1950's summer garden and next on a 1970 cruise.  More of that another time.  If you're wondering why a lot of posts have disappeared, I had to remove them at the request of one of M's friends.  I think it's unreasonable but I decided it was anything for a quiet life.

 

Still hoping that we shall be able to get M to hospital on Tuesday to have her cataract removed - fingers crossed that we shan't get too much more snow.