Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
Since we've no place to go
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

What a busy start to the week but I am determined to be organised for Christmas so that I am not in a panic in the last few days before, so rushed that I can't sit down and spend time with the children who are both back from London for Christmas. I am endeavouring to have everything under control by 20th December, leaving just the fresh fruit,veg and dairy items to pick up. Now not only do I trail glitter in my wake but also pages of closely written lists fly around my head as I attempt to catch them as they flutter about.

In fact, I think I will go back and put some Christmas lyrics at the start of the post. Oh! That reminds, me I must look out the Christmas cds. I think, I will know when I have checked my list, that I have got all my overseas postings out of the way before the cut off dates. I am on my final batch of twinkling stars and perky birds, which I will decorate my own home with. Yes, I have been playing Miss Daisy squirrel today, when I was doing the grocery shopping, bits of this and that in the trolley, to squirrel away in a dark secret place at home until Christmas.



I have seen this Christmas meme on a few sites, and have been saving it, so today I feel the time is right to answer it.

1.Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot chocolate, but hey its Christmas, I want all the Christmas experience, can I be greedy and choose egg nog too?

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree?
Mrs Santa does the wrapping and decorating and the glitterfication of all the presents.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
White lights everywhere, except in the dining room where I have a string of a warm amber colour.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
No. Never see any around except at inflated prices in florists. Anyways I like holly, ivy and pine cones better.

5. When do you put up your decorations?
Usually around the 10th December, depends when the house is ready, my system is thoroughly clean the room for Christmas, decorate it then move onto the next, it sort of spreads out the excitement of Christmas decorating. I think over the pond it all starts happening right after Thanksgiving. Am I right?

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
It s got to be turkey and the works, the actual Christmas Dinner, I'm a traditionalist.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child?
Walking to my grandparents house for Christmas dinner knowing there would be another Christmas Stocking waiting for me there. In my memory it always seem to be sunny, cold and crisp.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
What truth? He never told me anything.



9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
No, wouldn't dream of it, like to go to sleep in expectation of the present opening on Christmas Day.

10. What kind of decorations are on your Christmas Tree?
My big tree in the front sitting room is a traditionally decorated tree, all gold, burgandy and pruple ornaments that I have built up over the years. I alos have a blue, turquoise, mauve, pearl and silver tree in the dining room and a small tree full of little wooden ornaments, mainly white in the back sitting room, where the computer is, and this year I am going to have my treasure tree branch where I will put all my assorted ornaments, that I have made, been given or been in swaps for and this tree will symbolise my friends around the world. I think my trees are going to be the same colours this year, but let's wait and see.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread?
Now that depends, if none of us have to be anywhere and we can watch it falling and be snug inside, I love it. I also love snow falling and then maybe just before midnight or the early hours of the morning, the sky clears, the stars emerge and I go down the path into the garden and look in wonder at the virgin snow and the twinkling stars, then return to do the same in the morning and looking for animal and bird tracks in it. Bliss, sitting by candlelight with insence perfuming the room watching snow flakes falling outside the window, drinking a cup of hot chocolate. Pure Bliss, lying in bed, warm and snug watching the snow flakes fall past the bedroom window [remember my casement window from the photographs.]

12. Can you ice skate?
Nope! I could probably stand clinging onto something.



13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
No, but to qualify that, I don't know if I am easily pleased or people have a knack of choosing the right thing for me, but most gifts are favourites. I can remember years where presents stand out. I'll just mention three, the year I got my doll's pram, bottle green and coachbuilt, I thought I was the bee's kness, the year I got my Dansette record player, blue and grey, how cool was I then, amd it came with a copy of Cliff Richard's 'The young ones' [I am red now with embarrassment] and the first proper present my children chose for me and paid for themselves. A lovely pair of silver and turqoise earrings from my favourite craft jewellers, we called them Sweetpea and Little Soldier [my pet name for him when he was young, that will embarrass him if he ever reads this] as they were adamanent they had paid for one earring each. They were always obsessed with sharing exactly, they even used to weigh mars bars if they shared one to make sure they got equal parts. I still have them, in fact I am wearing them today.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Our children being back with us, our family unit complete again for a little while.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
The trifle I make every year for Christmas night, and every year we all say we are a bit too full at the moment, then really late sometimes about one in the morning we descend on it as a midnight snack, and we have more for dinner on Boxing Day.

16 What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Just being together and chilling, if someone falls asleep on the settee late in the afternoon, so what, we just want a lovely chilled out day. Boxing day is sports day for the men, and absolute jammies day for the girls, long lie in, buffet with pick and eat food all day, doing your own thing, listening to new cds, starting or browsing new books, drinking wine etc. I would never dream of being one of these people that shoot off to the Sales for bargains, too much hassle after Christmas Day.

17. What tops your tree?
An angel ,the main tree, or sometimes a star.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
I love making or picking our presents, wrapping them up and giving them to people. I also love receiving, nothing is too small to be appreciated, I truly believe people give what they can and it is the thought that count. Therefore, I love both sides of it.
19. Favourite Christmas Carol?
In the Bleak Midwinter,[which has two tunes, I only like one of them].

20. Three favourite Christmas Hit singles?
Fairytale of New York - the Pogues, Stop the Cavalry - Jona Lewie and Happy Christmas [War is over] - John Lennon

I think I added these last two questions myself, because the meme I saw had only eighteen and I wanted twenty, which is a good number for a meme.

I have opened up another site to run along side this one, called Daisy Lupin Designs, as I have decided, come the new year, to seriously start selling some of the stuff I make. The site will be a showcase for what I can offer for sale at the time. It can be viewed now, although, it is still under construction and needs quite a few tweaks here and there. The thing that is confusing me though is that I have tried to put a link to the new site on the side bar of Cats in the Kitchen etc site, well the link has shown up but it doesn't lead anywhere, does anyone out there know anything about adding links, delving into urls etc is not one of my strong points.

I'm afraid that's all I've got time to write about today, as this is a very busy week for me. don't forget to be thinking about your contributions to the Christmas Story Circle, see below.

Don’t forget to join in Daisy Lupin's
Christmas Story or Memory Posting
Post a Christmas memory, story, even a ghost story
Or poem you would like to share,
More than one if you wish ,
Anytime between 17th and 24th December
Just let me know it is your contribution
I will transfer them to a temporary site
There they will remain for everyone to enjoy
Until the end of January.
Come on lets have a Giant Christmas Story Circle

Sunday Scribblings - Nemesis

Your nemesis, or arch enemy, seems to change as you go through life, looking back at your ach enemy can be quite amusing, especially those from childhood. They are such insubstantial enemies, these enemies emerged out of small childhood trials which at the time, to your young mind, seemed to cast a shadow over the world.

My first nemesis, arrived in my life in my second year in school and was centred around the dressing-up box. At the time the most exciting children's programme for us was Robin Hood, and we would all gallop around the school playground singing the words of the signature tune, something along the lines of:-

Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
Riding through the Glen,
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
With his band of men,
Feared by the bad,
Loved by the Good,
Robin Hood, Robin Hood'.

I could go on with the verses, but don't worry I will control myself. It was a boy, that always instigated the Robin Hood game, he was always Robin Hood and everyone else was one of the band of men, except for one girl, and there were only two of us girls who played the Robin Hood Game, who could be Maid Marion. To be Maid Marion, meant you had to get the green velvet cloak out of the dressing-up box and wear it. So every afternoon, it was just about a fight to the death between, lets call her Susan for the sake of the story, Susan and I. We never really fell out over it, we just got more and more wound up about getting to the clothes box first, and giving hateful looks to the one who achieved the cloak. I even tried to take the cloak out of the box at lunch time, one day to hide it so I could be Maid Marion, but was caught and made to return it. Neither of us ever thought of a sensible plan, such as, taking day and day about to be Marion, but the whole day was geared towards the holy grail of grabbing this cloak to wear, until after a few months, when everyone became fed up of the Robin Hood game.

My next nemesis, was when I was about ten years old, my next door neighbour had a new baby, about six months old, at the time and I loved to take her walks in the pram round the neighbourhood. Can you imagine a ten year old these days wandering round pushing a coachbuilt pram, what safe times those seem. There was a girl that lived over the road from me, Anne, we had fallen out over some childish argument, as girls do. That long summer we vied, in what seems like everyday, to be the first to get to the pram and take the baby out for a walk. The rules we played by were as soon as the pram with the baby in was parked in the fresh air of the front garden, we were allowed to go and knock and ask if we could walk the baby. Whoever got there first got the baby and the pram, and because we had fallen out the other could not interfere. Can you imagine the scene, two little girls their beady eyes watching for a pram emerging? If I was eating my breakfast and the pram emerged I was not allowed from the table and there was a chance that Anne would win that day. What small worries and incidents fill our minds in childhood.



Teenage years, usually bring a nemesis, because there is always a girl that is the most fashionable and coolest, that everyone wishes they were, she is usually the girl that goes after the boy you think is so cool. Were these girls as cool and confident as we thought or were they stuffed full of doubts, lack of confidence and rampart emotions as my friends and I all were. She is the girl that starts the trends that everyone follows, the wearing of your uniform a certain way. The latest fashions out of school.

My friends and I all had the same nemesis, a girl so cool that she could be naughty, yet pull the wool over teachers eyes, and also be brilliant academically. I thought I was coolish and I was a naughty girl, unfortunately, at that time in life, I didn't apply myself academically so I couldn't have the best of both worlds. This is the girl who is the first to smoke, the first to notice boys and make friends with them. Remember I went to a Convent School in my teenage years, and was known as a naughty girl, I never had the knack of knowing when to suck up to the nuns as Glenda, did so she got away with with her secret naughty side. Most probably I didn't care about pleasing the nuns, who I was constantly at war with over tights, length of skirt etc. [The nuns, one in particular, were another nemesis, but that's a story for another time]. Looking back now, I realise that my nemesis, Glenda, was only supremely confidant as she had an older sister in the school sixth form, and was really copying her.

Thereafter, through out life there is usually at each stage someone, who could be regarded as your nemesis, either an equal or in jobs sometimes a boss that can put pressure on, or in designing someone that tries to convince they can make as well as you can. I think you have to look at it this way. In all situations that are almost perfect, there is always ' a fly in the ointment', someone who stops things from being one hundred per cent perfect, in their attitude to you. I realise now, that that is life, to enjoy the almost perfect scenario you often have to put up with nemesis, that causes ripples, my advice, just accept they are part and parcel of the situation, and treat them like a rather annoying fly buzzing around. They are never usually as important as you think they are, when you look back with hindsight.



Here is a little tale for you, it could be called in a joking way Am I never satisfied or maybe it is a deep insight into human nature? Once upon a time a lady called Daisy had to do all her creative work on a kitchen table, clearing it away as meals were needed to be eaten there. Then her daughter left home to live in the bright lights of London, and would only be needing her bedroom occasionally, so Daisy bought a lovely pine table for £10 in a second furniture shop. She moved this into her daughter's bedroom and she had a workspace that she never needed to clear. As time went by she enroached more and more upon the bedroom and it got to be that there always had to be a hurried tidying of the room when the daughter returned.



Inspiration struck, the spare bedroom that was rarily used could be turned into a proper artroom, if it was ever desperately needed, a bed could be made up in there. So Daisy's art work station became an art room and it was wonderful to have a chest of drawers to store art materials in, cute piles of boxes could be piled against the walls with containers with rolls of paper in. What space, what room, the pine table was in place, sewing machine always being pushed to the back of it to be pulled forward when used. The rest of the space covered in pens, glitter, current work in progress. The the bold Daisy thought, if only I had another table so I could move my sewing machine on that and store my boxes of material underneath, I would never need to clear this table to move my sewing machine forward to use it. It could be permanently ready, on this other table.



Well, Daisy belonged to a wonderful organisation called Freecycle, where people advertise, for free, stuff they don't want any more and if you want it you phone the person and agree to collect it, its yours for the taking. A bit like a garage sale without paying for items. There for the taking was a large table with drawer underneath that could be used as a desk, also for the taking was one of those cute wooden needlework boxes on legs that has trays that open out in tiers, ripe for renovating. Luckily Daisy's big strong son was paying a quick visit and a van was borrowed to bring the said furniture back to the cottage.

Daisy is over the moon, imagine having an artroom with a table for drawing and working on and a table for sewing on. Who could possibly need more than that?

The cake is made, the Christmas puddings are made, the mincemeat ingredients are waiting all together, to be mixed and bottled ready to fill the sweet mince pies nearer to Christmas. I have pinched some wonderful quick biscuit recipes off Pea's site and some homemade chocolate recipes, hazelnut clusters and chocolate covered marshmallows and cherries covered in chocolate. What a home made Christmas this is going to be, with home made cards, mostly as well. This to me is how Christmas should be, making as much ourselves as possible, it's not about spending vast amounts of money it's about the fun of making and sharing, as Kai, said on a comment she left on my site 'Christmas will be special, this year, because of the glitter'. I think that too.



The next stage is to finish off most my ornaments this week, then by next weekend start thoroughly cleaning each room and Christmas decorating it as I finish the cleaning, just about the only time of the year when I enjoy cleaning because apart from the reward of a lovely room there are the decorations, the lights, the scented candles, I am blissful just thinking about it.

Once again this posting is illustrated by photographs of my garden taken at the height of summer. This is the last of those photographs.

Don’t forget to join in Daisy Lupin's
Christmas Story or Memory Posting
Post a Christmas memory, story, even a ghost story
Or poem you would like to share,
More than one if you wish ,
Anytime between 17th and 24th December
Just let me know it is your contribution
I will transfer them to a temporary site
There they will remain for everyone to enjoy
Until the end of January.
Come on lets have a Giant Christmas Story Circle

'Spick and Span', The very words send a shudder through me. I love a home with a lovely warm welcoming ambience but I am not houseproud. No, that is not a contradiction, it means that I decorate my home in a comfortable warming way, but I don't waste my days constantly cleaning, dusting, hovering. I don't even mind a couple of piles of things hanging around, things slightly out of place. Whisper it softly, at busy times I have even managed to live with a layer of light dust on the furniture. Life is too short to spend on housework, just think of all the more interesting things you could be doing. As long as things are of a clean standard I coast along igoring housework and they every so often have a giant blitz when I see grubbiness approaching and too many piles teetering. Housework must not eat into my crafting and art time, gardening time or reading time or just general me time.



I take a wild approach to necessary tasks, I change the bed on a Monday as soon as I get out of it, that way, it not much more of a chore than making the bed. I constantly wash clothes, then they may hang around dry in a basket for a few days, I hardly ever iron, most things if washed carefully and hung up lose their creases, so that just essentials to iron. Doing my housework this way, it almost becomes an enjoyable task to turn a room upside down every couple of weeks and thoroughly clean it. The dyson comes out just when the carpet needs it, not every day, anyways its bad for carpets to hoover them too often, ruins them, also I am lucky that we have some wooden floors.



My Mother would probably have thought in her younger days that I am a complete slut, but I' m not, I 've just got my priorities right. She, when I was a little girl used to have a 'friendly' competition every Monday with the next door neighbour to see who could get the whitest whites out on the washing line and who got them out first. I'm afraid I need more joy and fun than that. So that is how I will continue with my housework until I get my housework fairy, but when I put an advert for one on this site a few months back no fairies replied, just a few ladies masquerading as fairies looking for a chance to stay in England at my cottage.

That was my contribution to Daisy Lupin's Stream of Consciousness, I bet I am, as I predicted the last one to participate. Not sure how I came to choose the phrase Spick and Span, because it wasn't what I thought I was going to pick. Also quite surprised at what emerged as I was writing it. Goodness knows what you all think of me now! I wonder what the message in that for me is, could it be that underneath I feel guilty about not doing a lot of housework and part of me is justifying myself to myself? Who knows? But I don't feel any guilt, just that I have got my priorities sorted.



Here is a photograph of some of the Christmas Ornaments I am now engaged in making. Pretty stars and perky birds, all bright and jazzy colours, not exactly Christmas Colours, but definitely twinkly enough for Christmas. This, as I said last posting, is all part of my love affair with felt, my mind is in overdrive with other beautiful hanging felt items I want to make. I have been busy with them all day today inbetween baking the last Christmas Cake. I must get started on some Christmas Cards I want to make too, so when I finish this batch of felt ornaments, it will be onto cards and then back to felt ornaments for my own home.

I did need to visit the glitter store again yesterday, I have to confess, but I really know I have everything I want now, I did need more feathers for my birds and shiny bits. Then I had a lovely surprise this morning an envelope from Robyn and the Australian Secret Fairy. It was delivered by her magpies and I found it amongst a scattering of feathers, I believe they were having a little pecking argument about which of them was to actually post the envelope in the letterbox. Inside were some lovely glittery christmas stickers, and the cutest little tinkling bells like the sort you get on a cat's collar. I have been looking for something like that everywhere, wasn't it clever of the Secret Fairy to know?



My magic hat was working its wonders when I was in the town yesterday. I found two books I have been looking for, Ya-Yas in Bloom and a Sue Monk Kidd one,[the Bee one] at the remainder bookshop, and the most exquisite fairy book I have seen for a long time Betty Bib's Fairy Christmas, it is full of whimsical drawings and photographs, it was saying 'pick me Daisy, you will enjoy this', how could I resist? Some of the Charity Shop's new gift selections are excellent this year, lots of little bits and bobs for stocking fillers. I think a lot of them have been all around the world hunting down traders and suppliers. I don't like to overwork my magic hat, in case, its powers wane, so I do keep swapping hats, its just that the best things happen when I am wearing that hat.

Summer memories, that's what I call the photographs [apart from the birds and stars one] that are illustrating this posting. These are all photographs taken at the height of summer in my garden. The film has been lying about since then and I have just had it developed, you know how lacksadaisical I am about these things. The photographs are in order of being shown, the shady cool spot outside my back kitchen door: where I sit in that spot beside the barn door out of the heat of the midday sun: the view of one of my beds my barrel with my magnolia tree and nasturiums in: looking back up the alleyway: getting ready for tea in the garden: the pots in the alleyway with my favourite buddah's head which is now growing moss [making it look venerable and ancient]: the pots underneath my back kitchen window: and my very favourite clematis.

I just thought it would bring a bit of warmth to our cold, wet and gloomy days here. There are some more photographs of my garden on the film, but I will save them for another gloomy, wet day.



I would like to say everyone, lets keep thinking of Robyn, who at the moment is living with the worry of a bush fire very near to her home, I know the stress and despair of waiting to see if a natural catastrophe is going to strike your home. Almost three years ago, we waited hour by hour in the worst floods in living memory watching flood water creep nearer and nearer to our front door, and we were exceptionally lucky that it peaked just below our front door step. Just let's send her thoughts focusing on the bush fire to be put out. Her own son is one of the voluntary bush fire fighters.



One happy note to end on, Mercury comes out of retrograde on the 24th November, so our computers should be working better, our travelling should be smoother and hopefully some of our heavy feelings should lighten.



Also the moon has passed out of its dark moon days and is waxing again, so those creative juices should be flowing extra well.

Don’t forget to join in Daisy Lupins’
Christmas Story or Memory Posting
Post a Christmas memory, story, even a ghost story
Or poem you would like to share,
More than one if you wish ,
Anytime between 17th and 24th December
Just let me know it is your contribution
I will transfer them to a temporary site
There they will remain for everyone to enjoy
Until the end of January.
Come on lets have a Giant Christmas Story Circle

What Bliss! The bliss of a weekend given over to creativity. My set of Christmas Ornaments for Carol's swap are packaged and were dispatched today. I have a lovely hanging rod that is gently filling with a second round of Christmas Ornaments, this time perky birds and tinkling stars, some in quite zingy colours. I am having a mad love affair with felt. I had forgotten the beauty of working with it, the joy of hand sewing without turning edges under, the beautiful jazzy colours that make all the sequins and glittery things I have stuck on even more shiny and twinkling. I have become a mad Christmas Ornament machine. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I emerged late afternoon from my artroom, like a regular Miss Daisy Mouse coming out of her mousehole in the skirtingboard, blinking at the huge wide world outside. Every evening I had to deglitter, desequin and deglue myself and I am still finding glittery pieces around the cottage. Today, the Christmas cake has been sorted, now I need to put this new posting on my site before returning for a final creative push for today.

The weather has been rainy and cold all weekend which made it more delightful than ever to be cosy in my art room, with good sounds playing on the hi-fi. I know I said I wasn't going to and even said everyone was to impress on me that I shouldn't but I really do need more beads, felt and feathers. Oops! Honest, that's all. Just for the Great Christmas Ornament Escapade! The birds especially are proud to be twinkly and glittery. I know in the shops they will be saying one assistant to another ' Look here's this crazy woman again with the colourful hat and sequins in her hair, she's buying more!' The photograph on the top right is of a selection of the ornaments I have made for Carol's swap. I will post some of my zingy ornaments another day.

Thought I would finish the tour of my home with my bedroom photographs, these are off the same film, somehow I seem to have lost a wall of the bedroom, but never mind. Please note the bedroom is not the blue the pictures show it is a much gentler blue not as intense as these photos make it. Also two photos showing where I used to do my artwork in Sweetpea's bedroom, luckily now, even though she just uses it when she comes to stay, it is back to how she likes it to look. I thought I had two photographs on the film of my new artroom, but there isn't I must root around as I did shoot some film of it to show you my new workspace. I will show it at some point when I find it.



I really promise that my next posting will include my Stream of Consciousness writing. Trust me to organise it and probably be the last to post it.

I think I will include this little Alphabet Meme that I stole off, basically Maryellen's site, but I think Pretty Lady had it as well.

A is for age:
I have just turned 55, but inside am years younger than this.

B is for Beer:
Yuck! I don't like beer or lager the nearest I can do is a glass of Magner's cider on ice.

C is for Career:
N o career, mind, I never have been an office, corporate sort of person, a bit too much of a free spirit that doesn't like to be told what to do.

D is for my Dog:
Never had a dog, though my hushand would like one, maybe sometime. I did have an imaginery dog when I was three years old, apparently. I used to called it Scottie, it was a black West Highland Terrier, and when I was out walking with my mother I used to hold my arm out in front of me although a dog was pulling me and its lead along.



E is for Essential Item I Use Everyday:
So many, I must suppose pick the Computer,but there is the hi-fi, the cooker, the washing machine, the radio, all pretty essential to my life.

F is for Favorite T.V. Show:
Lost, of course.



G is for Favourite Game:
I can quite happily while away time playing solitaire. Though as a child it was Hide and Seek, nothing gives you the thrills and spills and frights of playing Hide and Seek in the Dark. Oh the pounding of your heart when someone is near your hiding place, the tension of getting back to home base.

H is for Hometown:
North West England.

I is for Instruments I Play:
The Piano, an instrument I learnt for eight years and then gave up in my rebellious teens. One day I will buy another for the sheer pleasure of being able to play every day.

J is for Favorite Juice:
At the moment Pomegranite, or more mundane apple.

K is for Whose Butt I’d Like To Kick:
Tony Blair, for being a complete idiot and incompetent and for dragging us into Iraq.

L is for the Last Place I Ate:
In my dining room, husband's turn to cook today, pork chops, sliced potatoes and vegetables, very tasty.



M is for Marriage:
Yes I am and have been for too many years to remember exactly.

N is for my Name:
Daisy Lupin

O is for Overnight Hospital Stays:
Births of two children.



P is for People I was With Today:
My husband, and my neighbour called in.

Q is for Quote:
Normally we do not as much look at things as overlook them - Alan Watts
The song and the land are one - Bruce Chatwin.

R is for Biggest Regret:
Do not dwell on your regrets, rather try to think it is never too late.



S is for Sport:
Charity Shop and Car Boot sales shopping, lrummaging round for a bargain.

T is for Time I Woke Up today:
7.45 to a grey rainy day.

U is for Current Underwear:
Blue and black.



V is for Vegetable You Love:
Carrots and parsnips.

W is for Worst Habit:
Depends who you talk to. Maybe butterfly mind, often goes off a tangent in conversation. Impatience in traffic and queues of any kind, such wasted time.

X rays I have had:
Apart from the usual, an x-ray on my middle finger on my left hand that I put a sewing machine needle right through many years ago. ouch! They couldn't get it all out as it shattered inside my finger. I am still supposed to watch out for it starting to travel! Also in winter can tell when it is going to rain because the finger starts to ache.

Yummy Food I have had today:
The pork chop my husband made and some lovely cheese for lunch.

Zodiac Sign:
Scorpio, with a sting in the tail, cross me if you dare, I have a long memory and can be highly secretive.



Just a couple of points about the photographs, the square cushions on our bed are a deep rose colour,not the coral they look on the picture. I am still looking for something sensational to put above the bed, apart from my blue twinkling fairy lights. I have a fear of pictures above my head in case they fall on me and the glass smashes in my face. I will know when I find what I am looking for, but am prepared to leave the space empty until then. Please note my teddies, the sad almost furless one is my wonderful Teddy Robinson, a venerable gent as old as I am. My collection of glass perfumes bottles are on my bedside table until I find something I would like to display them in. Sweetpea's bedroom with its cool lavender walls, not a good colour to work around when being creative. Poor Sweetpea had to put up with my messy desk and pile of boxes at the end of her bed on a quite a few visits, before I got my new artroom sorted.

Don’t forget to join in Daisy Lupin's
Christmas Story or Memory Posting
Post a Christmas memory, story, even a ghost story
Or poem you would like to share,
More than one if you wish,
Anytime between 17th and 24th December
Just let me know it is your contribution
I will transfer them to a temporary site
There they will remain for everyone to enjoy
Until the end of January.
Come on lets have a Giant Christmas Story Circle

Will someone please say to me 'Daisy you must have enough glitter, shiny paper, sequins, tinsel etc to decorate the world by now. Cease increasing the stock immediately!' I must now concentrate on the making not the buying. First though, I thought I would do this post, showing some of the challenges I am probably the last to do, I know I will probably be the last to play my Streams of Consciousness game. It, the cobbler's children and their shoes syndrome.

Up above, to the right, we have the Coffee Cup Challenge. This, technically, is my favourite coffee mug but alas I can't use it too much. It is developing fine hairline cracks, so I don't want to overuse it. I see it everytime I go into the dining room though as it hangs off a hook on my dresser. I was musing as I was colouring my mug, what fun if there was some way we could put all the cups and mugs together and look at them in a row or a square. Any one got any ideas if this is possible?

To the left, below, is my take on the Angelic Earth Challenge. Please don't look too closely at the landmasses on our planet, lets just say I used poetic or artistic license. My angel or fairy with a halo is holding the planet in her arms and weeping for the madness of human behaviour towards Mother Earth.



I don't know if anyone remembers but sometime ago I uploaded a photo of my dining room, as someone was asking about my Portmerion pottery collection. One or two people said any other rooms to show. I said, fine and tooks loads of photos of other rooms, well the ones I am 99 per cent pleased with. Well you know me, not exactly good at getting films developed they tend to hang around the house for weeks until one day, I think 'ah ha'. I have just had a film back and it has the room photos on it. I know, if we are truthful we are all nosey parkers, sticky beaks, or whatever the local word is for being 'curious' shall we say. I will be uploading one room at a time and giving you a 360 degree tour of it.

To make it more interesting than just a set of photographs, I am also between the photos going to do a meme that I first saw on Janet's site and stole off her, I think Sheila has done this too. I am not tagging any one to do it but it is quite an odd little meme. I have also got for another day an Alpha meme from Maryellen and a colour one I pinched from Blue the Spa Girl's site. Both will follow in due course.

So this is our main room, which you enter straight off the street. It is my favourite room in the cottage, excluding, of course, my artroom. We mostly use it in the evenings and don't turn the light on but use candles and incense. If one of us is reading we just use one ot the spot lamps trained down on the book. Can anyone spot our Green Man, my guardian?


Someone knocks your door at 2am, who do you want it to be?
Someone who has knocked at the wrong door, my husband and children, if they are out can let themselves in. In the normal way of things, nothing good can come of a knock at the door at that time.



Your boss tells you he/she will give you a $20 raise if you'll do your job naked. Do you stay and take the raise?
I am my own boss so I am hardly likely to be involved with this.

Put yourself in a nutshell?
It's a tight squeeze! Sorry [hee hee], fey, floaty jingley, mad, bad and dangerous to know [I will lead you astray from a tunnel visioned world]

Ever seen a ghost?
Yes, Apart from my ghost cats, I have told the tale about one of my ghosts on this site.



Happy with your body?

No, not really I love the wisdom of age but would love a young body again to wear really outrageous clothes and have some piercings and a tatoo.

A reason to move to Iceland?
Definitely, not for the cheap standard of living.

A place you've lived that you miss?

None really, each move has got me to nicer scenery, my ideal place would be at the sea, ideally in Cornwall.

A job you'd never do, no matter how much you were paid?
Mortician. When I was about eleven my best friend's father was one, the tales she used to tell to scare us, never been quite sure which were true and which weren't. Probably best not to know, when I remember some of them.

A band/group you thought was cool when you were 13?
Herman's Hermits [as if they could ever be cool]! Quickly followed by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

You have a nightmare, who's the first person you think to call?
My husband usually wakes me from them.

Wanna have kids before you're 30?
Had my son at 27 and my daughter when I was 32, so been there done that and worn out the tshirt.



A memory from high school?
The dreadful grey flannet gym skirts we wore, a sort of culotte idea. They were really rough and scratched your legs on cross country runs, until my friend and I realised if we stopped beside the war memorial in the park, as no teacher came with us, we could catch the runners on the way back and have a quick smoke. It ended in disaster as more and more naughty girls hung out at the war memorial and the good girls tittle-tattled on us! Also the fad, we were not allowed to wear stockings or tights, of wearing american tan tights under white socks, how on earth did we think they would not be spotted.

Ever had a crush on a friend's parent?
Good grief no, they were old fusspots.

Do you look like your Mom or Dad?
Depends who you talk to, I can see both in my face.



Something you've always wanted to learn to do?
Don't laugh, knit really well and really fast, able to makeup patterns and finish complicated items very quickly. Knitting apart from garter and stocking stitch totally defeats me.

How you'd like your life to be in 10 years?
With my husband, happy,healthy living in Cornwall by the sea with three cats, a dog for my husband to walk and some hens.


Something you learned this year?

The fun that blogging is when you make really good cyber friendships.

What do you want for your birthday?
I have just had my birthday and was more than satisfied with the beautiful presents I received.



Name 4 things you did yesterday?
Bought the rest of the Christmas baking ingredients, visited my mother,met someone I have not seen for 39 years, more about that another time and spent a leisurely evening reading.

Last item you bought for yourself?
A necklace that called my name.

What did you have for breakfast?
Apple juice, weetabix and coffee.

Name a celeb you have a crush on?
Wow Johnny Depp

Name the last 3 songs you heard?
Old Mountain Woman - Neil Young, Ain't Necessarily So -Jamie Cullen, I'm All right - Madeleine Peyroux.

How many hours of sleep do you get each night?
About six, on a Sunday eight.

What do you wish you were doing right now?
Having a meal and a drink in our favourite pub in Penzance, Cornwall, just the place to be on a rainy Friday evening.


Who's the first person in your phone book on your cell?
Local taxi firm as it begins with B.

Last time you witnessed a fight?
One night as I was being driven through the city about a year ago, two young men punching each other.

Name 3 places you'd like to travel to?
Really I would love to go on the Orient Express right through Europe. Oh forgot to mention I want to go back in time and do it. That would take me through more than three places.



Do you know how to ice skate?
Once I could just about stand up on ice.

Name something you like that's out of the ordinary?
It's not really out of the ordinary but most people don't like them, I like spiders.

What do you think of Brad Pitt?
Not my type.

What color are your toenails ?
The pink they arrived with.

Do you own anything with a skull on it?
Yes, a pirate's hat - don't ask.

Last movie you watched?
Lord of the Rings

Where were you when you had your first kiss?
In the playground under a tree.

Last board game you played?
Scattogories, a good few years ago. Not really into board games.

Leather or lace?
Lace and it would probably be vintage lace.

Ever had a black eye?
Never.

Have you ever worn fishnet stockings?
Yes when I was younger and there was a fad for them.

Don’t forget to join in Daisy Lupins’
Christmas Story or Memory Posting
Post a Christmas memory, story, even a ghost story
Or poem you would like to share,
More than one if you wish ,
Anytime between 17th and 24th December
Just let me know it is your contribution
I will transfer them to a temporary site
There they will remain for everyone to enjoy
Until the end of January.
Come on lets have a Giant Christmas Story Circle