Happy New Year (and some Christmas pictures)
I still don't have my PC back but fear that, if I don't post these Christmas pictures now, they will never see the light of LJ! Sadly, the photos are not my best: my beloved Ricoh broke earlier in December and I know I'm still not getting the best out of the Canon Ixus that I bought in haste to replace it. *sigh* I'm probably just a slow learner.
I wish you all good fortune, health and happiness in 2012. Happy New Year!
Let's start with a couple of traditional English mince pies:
Inside the pastry cup and lid (pie) is a rich mixture of dried vine fruit, candied citrus peel, dark brown sugar and spices. Very nice with a glass of spiced and heated red wine!
A friend who stays with us at Christmas brought me a beautiful home-made, nut-studded Christmas cake (again with vine fruits and cherries, lemon peel and spices) as a gift - it is delicious.
You can just see the Christmas tree in the background so let's have another look. This is how you see it as you first come into the room:
And a bit closer:
Here's a general shot of the tree decorations as they appear in the dark:
and here's a close-up of a nativity scene that I bought in Assisi (home of St Francis who first thought of using models - including real people! - to re-enact the story of the nativity):
I enjoyed a happy Christmas this year with a break from work (mostly!) and with lots of friends visiting and staying. We had a log fire burning most of the time and, with the tree, grand piano, candles and decorations, the room really did look like a traditional Christmas card scene. Here are some shots round the room, starting with a corner which seems to be rather heavy in Gackt posters!
I received lots of beautiful cards, some hand-made by artist friends and quite a few from LJ friends on these shelves here:
Here's a more general shot of that area:
There are several of these big bookcases dotted around the room and none of them escape decoration for Christmas - decorating the tree and the whole room takes about 5 or 6 hours.
(ame, if you're looking, you can see my mum's painting of Mdina with the bright blue sky on the wall above the shorter cupboard)
Here, sadly, is how the tree looks in the minutes before it is removed from the house (Twelfth Night, 6th January, is the traditional deadline for that):
You can imagine how bare the room looks now :=(
This year, the local Under13s football club offered to take the "finished" Christmas trees from houses to the recycling point in exchange for a donation towards their travelling expenses to a junior football tournament in Holland a bit later in the year. I thought that this was a great idea to be useful and to keep busy in the school holidays - and they certainly earned their money with my huge, heavy tree ha ha
I hope that you all had a happy and peaceful time over the holiday if it IS a holiday where you are. I'm trying to keep that colourful, magic and generally special feeling for a little longer - it was my first kung fu class of 2012 today and I ache quite a bit after all the Christmas laziness, so I hope a bit of the Christmas magic sticks aroung and works on me too!
Hope you enjoyed seeing a few photos from me. I will improve with the new camera... and, to end, here it is (colourful and magic in its own right):
Some of you will already know that my favourite colour is - purple ;=)
Happy New Year!