Quick catch up
The past week has been busy, apologies for not being around much!
Christmas Day - started the day with carols at church, home to open our presents to each other; I got a gift set of my favourite perfume, and a small, very portable, blue-tooth speaker to use with the laptop when I listen to books or, even more useful, music.
Then we went to D-d et al's for our Christmas lunch with the four of them and the NYM's parents. The best thing about this is sitting back whilst D-d and her husband do the work and put an excellent spread in front of us all. I cook the red cabbage the night before and bring it, and Chris (his Mum) and I bring some desserts.
We sat around drinking coffee and opening gifts, then ate dessert about 4pm - choosing from profiteroles, vanilla cheesecake and trifle, before we headed for home about 5pm. The sweaters I had knitted for D-d and the NYM both fitted and they seemed to really like them. Sweatshirts carefully chosen for the NYKs where also big hits.
Boxing Day was pretty quiet, to be honest - but I had got new books for Christmas...
27th - tidied up, did some shopping, perused the sales.
28th - my birthday. S2C gave me a new lap-desk especially to use with the laptop, and a Mongolian cookery book.
D-d and NYK2 picked me up after a light lunch and we head to the south of the island to Soaral in Port Erin where we met my sister and the two nieces for an afternoon of candle making, which was lovely - good company and a break towards the end of around 30-45 minutes to go and visit a couple of nearby shops whilst the candles set enough for us to take them home. We had fun in two of our favourite shops buying nice things, mainly for each other :)
Then I came home and, after a brief pause, S2C and I drove to a favourite restaurant to meet D-d, her husband and NYK2 for dinner. Sadly NYK1 wasn't able to join us as he was working (he decided to leave school, as he is 16, and is working in PC World and doing a day release course at college). We had a really good meal - and again they are the best of company!
29th - I really meant to update my journal - but I caught up with photo_scavenger, caught up with the 52 week Ato Z challenge on Flickr*, went shopping for food, then began to knit an aran headband for D-d to match the jumper.
* I will post the pictures, or at least a link to them, sometime over the next week.
30th - we had a visit from an old friend who was back on the island to see his mother, from his home in Amsterdam. It was so good to see him. We played D&D together back in the day, and all agreed that it really did not feel as if it had been quite some years since we last met together in person. My niece also popped by with a birthday present she had forgotten to bring on Saturday.
Today - NYK2 was here for much of the day - we are 'footery things' for lunch, left from yesterday's evening with Cliff, and then she and I spent time working out what would be a good sewing project for her to attempt. We had a look at all the fabric in my 'stash' and she decided to make a simple bag, which would be easy to cut out and fairly straightforward to sew, using some of the Manx Hunting Tartan that I had stashed away since D-d and her husband's wedding.
We decided to include a deep inner pocket as well, once we had a good look at one her brother had made at school and gifted me when he was 11.
She is very good on the sewing machine - much better at perfect straight lines than I ever was! The bag was completed to the stage where we need to make a strap for it. We plan to do that later this week. She says she thinks her good control of speed using the foot pedal, even though she has only used the machine once before, comes from being a drummer :)
This evening S2C and I ate macaroni cheese that I actually made yesterday and left ready to finish off today, and watched all the quizzes accompanied by coffee and the last 2 slices of Christmas Cake.- a very pleasant way to spend the evening!
A spot of the pre-Christmas baking -
Those were chocolate biscuits cut with the snowflake cutter;
Here are a few of them finished -
This is the trifle I took to D-d's at Christmas -
Those are mini gingerbread men on the top.
Here we are candle-making -
Younger niece, my sister, me, Charlotte (NYK2) and D-d. My elder niece, Emmy, took the picture. Charlotte is concentrating hard.
When we were chatting I was saying someone had asked me for the recipe for Christmas Tiffin. Emmy misheard and thought I had said Christmas Chicken - which led to a series of jokes. Once the wax has been weighed, melted, we had chosen and mixed our individual scents for our candles and poured them, the lady asked us to each come up with a name to put onto our own ones. After much though mine was 'Birthday Candle', D-d's was 'Christmas Yumminess' (guess which aromas she went towards!), Charlotte chose 'This is a Candle!' - and this is Emmy's...
The lady running the workshop was a little bemused by it!
And I have just got in under the wire to make this the final post of 2024!
Christmas Day - started the day with carols at church, home to open our presents to each other; I got a gift set of my favourite perfume, and a small, very portable, blue-tooth speaker to use with the laptop when I listen to books or, even more useful, music.
Then we went to D-d et al's for our Christmas lunch with the four of them and the NYM's parents. The best thing about this is sitting back whilst D-d and her husband do the work and put an excellent spread in front of us all. I cook the red cabbage the night before and bring it, and Chris (his Mum) and I bring some desserts.
We sat around drinking coffee and opening gifts, then ate dessert about 4pm - choosing from profiteroles, vanilla cheesecake and trifle, before we headed for home about 5pm. The sweaters I had knitted for D-d and the NYM both fitted and they seemed to really like them. Sweatshirts carefully chosen for the NYKs where also big hits.
Boxing Day was pretty quiet, to be honest - but I had got new books for Christmas...
27th - tidied up, did some shopping, perused the sales.
28th - my birthday. S2C gave me a new lap-desk especially to use with the laptop, and a Mongolian cookery book.
D-d and NYK2 picked me up after a light lunch and we head to the south of the island to Soaral in Port Erin where we met my sister and the two nieces for an afternoon of candle making, which was lovely - good company and a break towards the end of around 30-45 minutes to go and visit a couple of nearby shops whilst the candles set enough for us to take them home. We had fun in two of our favourite shops buying nice things, mainly for each other :)
Then I came home and, after a brief pause, S2C and I drove to a favourite restaurant to meet D-d, her husband and NYK2 for dinner. Sadly NYK1 wasn't able to join us as he was working (he decided to leave school, as he is 16, and is working in PC World and doing a day release course at college). We had a really good meal - and again they are the best of company!
29th - I really meant to update my journal - but I caught up with photo_scavenger, caught up with the 52 week Ato Z challenge on Flickr*, went shopping for food, then began to knit an aran headband for D-d to match the jumper.
* I will post the pictures, or at least a link to them, sometime over the next week.
30th - we had a visit from an old friend who was back on the island to see his mother, from his home in Amsterdam. It was so good to see him. We played D&D together back in the day, and all agreed that it really did not feel as if it had been quite some years since we last met together in person. My niece also popped by with a birthday present she had forgotten to bring on Saturday.
Today - NYK2 was here for much of the day - we are 'footery things' for lunch, left from yesterday's evening with Cliff, and then she and I spent time working out what would be a good sewing project for her to attempt. We had a look at all the fabric in my 'stash' and she decided to make a simple bag, which would be easy to cut out and fairly straightforward to sew, using some of the Manx Hunting Tartan that I had stashed away since D-d and her husband's wedding.
We decided to include a deep inner pocket as well, once we had a good look at one her brother had made at school and gifted me when he was 11.
She is very good on the sewing machine - much better at perfect straight lines than I ever was! The bag was completed to the stage where we need to make a strap for it. We plan to do that later this week. She says she thinks her good control of speed using the foot pedal, even though she has only used the machine once before, comes from being a drummer :)
This evening S2C and I ate macaroni cheese that I actually made yesterday and left ready to finish off today, and watched all the quizzes accompanied by coffee and the last 2 slices of Christmas Cake.- a very pleasant way to spend the evening!
A spot of the pre-Christmas baking -
Those were chocolate biscuits cut with the snowflake cutter;
Here are a few of them finished -
This is the trifle I took to D-d's at Christmas -
Those are mini gingerbread men on the top.
Here we are candle-making -
Younger niece, my sister, me, Charlotte (NYK2) and D-d. My elder niece, Emmy, took the picture. Charlotte is concentrating hard.
When we were chatting I was saying someone had asked me for the recipe for Christmas Tiffin. Emmy misheard and thought I had said Christmas Chicken - which led to a series of jokes. Once the wax has been weighed, melted, we had chosen and mixed our individual scents for our candles and poured them, the lady asked us to each come up with a name to put onto our own ones. After much though mine was 'Birthday Candle', D-d's was 'Christmas Yumminess' (guess which aromas she went towards!), Charlotte chose 'This is a Candle!' - and this is Emmy's...
The lady running the workshop was a little bemused by it!
And I have just got in under the wire to make this the final post of 2024!