The one before the big one

 Another December birthday yesterday, mine :-)

Yes, next year will be a big one, but for the rest of this year and most of the next I will be enjoying the last year of my fifties😂

The children spoilt me yet again, they do put a lot of thought into their gifts and buy things that are perfect for me.

In case you didn't spot it in the photo above, look at one of the things Jenny bought me, The Meadow by Bothy Threads...Eeek! I've looked at this kit for so long.  Sharon at my local needlework shop stitched it a few years ago and has it hanging in the shop and every time I go in I admire it.   I probably won't start it just yet but it will definitely be one to stitch in 2021

Included in the advent swap that I did with my lovely friend Jo were some things for me to open on my birthday.  

Thank you so much Jo, I absolutely love everything 😀

There is one more family birthday today, my brother's.  He is seven years older than me so you could say that I was his birthday present all those years ago, lol.  We were very close when we were younger, I used to follow him everywhere and he would let me tag along with him and his friends.  We don't see each other very often now but he is still the one I can relate to more than either of my sisters.

When I was younger I used to think it was a bit pants having a birthday so close to Christmas, I tended to get presents that were for Christmas and birthday.  Having two of my daughters born in December I made sure that never happened with them, they always had, (and still have) a proper birthday with birthday presents wrapped in birthday paper, (very important to someone with a birthday close to Christmas).  I don't mind that my birthday is so close to Christmas now, when I was at work it meant that I never had to work on my birthday either, ha ha.

I've been stitching away on my Waxing |Moon Designs January sampler over the last couple of days

Do you think I made this happen 😄

I know a lot of people hate it, but It just makes me so happy to see snow 😁☃☃☃

I hope you are still enjoying what's left of the festive season, now made even more festive here by the snow :-)

See you soon

-X-

If only the snow had waited another 2 weeks we could have had a white Christmas!

We've had a lovely weekend visiting Lincoln Christmas market. 

On Friday morning we woke up to quite a bit of snow and we thought it would take us longer than the estimated 2 hours to get there but when we reached the other side of Birmingham there was no snow to be seen, so we made good time and got to the hotel just after 2pm.  We dropped our bags and drove into town and managed to park the car on the retail park a short walk from the centre.

The hotel was further from the city centre than Booking.com had said (!) so on Saturday morning we caught the bus there and got a taxi back in the evening as we thought it would be busier than the day before.  We browsed the shops in the day and after a late lunch we made our way up to the Christmas market again.  The market is mainly centred around the area of the Cathedral and you make your way up via lovely pretty cobbled streets, very steep streets, in fact one of the streets is called Steep Hill.

I wish I had taken my camera on the Friday as on Saturday there were so many people it was impossible to get any decent photos at all, and also very hard to look at any of the stalls.  If you ever think you might like to visit Lincoln's Christmas Market take my advice and go on the Friday, it's much less stressful.

The wonderful Cathedral

This morning we woke to snow in Lincoln too, so we set off for home as soon as we could, again expecting delays.  The traffic was quite light so we got home safe and sound by just after lunchtime.

The conditions got worse the closer we go to home

I couldn't resist taking some photos as we were near home, everything looked so pretty!

Turning into our estate

And then our road

Then seeing our garden turned into a lovely white wonderland :-)

Looking over the garden fence

 (Below) Two doors away, part of their garden transformed into a magical scene

One of the first things I did once we had got the bags in was make sure the birds had some food.

My little Robin was soon back once he knew there was something :-)

Along with our other regular visitors

Sorry, I do seems to have posted a lot of photos again!

I have tomorrow off work so I'm going try and make the most of it and have a rest after all that walking.

See you soon

-X-

New Start, Snow & Daft Cats!

School was out again today because of snow over night so Stevie had yet another day of sledding. Last night was only about the 2nd time I've parked in our street in a week because of the weather, just my luck, i managed to inch my way down this morning, sliding the last bit, luckily there were no parked cars for me to hit towards the bottom of the road! The main roads weren't much better, I'm sure the gritters haven't been in our parts. This afternoon after work i left my car out of the street again, just in case!

I know this is a pathetic amount of snow compared to other countries but believe me, even this amount causes havoc in the UK, we are just not used to it and don't have the resources to cope with it, no snow ploughs and we are running out of salt and grit!

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When i was uploading some photos i remembered that i hadn't shared my framed Zippity-do-da with you, so here you go. Hard to get a photo of all of it with my small camera, but you get the idea, the frame i chose in the end was a white-ish distressed one which matched Stevie's room.

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My new start for 2010 was actually started on Boxing Day

Quaker Row by Midnight Stitching
I'm stitching on 28 count with Threadworx 10342. Still not really sure about the colour but it's staying put now! I just realised that i haven't quite finished the squirrel stitching. (does anyone else think that squirrel looks a little crazy?)
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Finally, this is my snow cat, molly, insisting on going out to catch snow flakes

She didn't wander too far from the door though i can tell you!
That's it for now, except to thank every one for their lovely comments on my last post and Fa-La-La, even though the stitching caused me so much greif i'm glad i stuck with it now, it's still sitting on the mantle in my bedroom just to remind me, and i did get the beads up of the floor, well, most of them anyway :-)