January, the bit in the middle.

We are now just past the halfway mark of January, and I am grateful for that. January is my least favourite month. GM's is November, but I'm OK with November.

Our next-door neighbour, Richard, popped round and gave us a hand with removing some of the dead growth in the no-man's-land behind our back fence in order to let more light into our very small growing space. Before and after pics below

Before

 After

 

We've done as much as we can safely do with regard to the overhanging evergreens, and I've now employed the services of a qualified tree surgeon, although a date has still to be fixed, but it will be fairly soon.

I mentioned my yarn stash in my last post

 I seem to have acquired rather a lot of pink! 

I found the following on Facebook

 

One of my neighbours, who, along with her teen daughter, also crochets, mentioned a challenge that she did last year, which was to crochet a square to match the covers of all the books she read during the year. I decided to do that challenge, but slightly differently. My friend Janet and I play a weekly word game with a different book each week, so I'm intending to match a crochet square to each of the books I use for the challenge. Due to unforseen circumstances we had to miss the first week of the year, so in order to make sure that I end up with 52 squares, I've done one for my Gratitude Journal, so you get the idea.

 

I went on my first adventure of the year on the wettest day of the year so far. I took the train to London to have lunch with my eldest son, who is celebrating his 60th birthday! He found us a nice pub in the Little Venice area, which isn't too far to walk from Paddington.

 

We enjoyed lots of chat and a couple of beers each with our meal, and completely forgot to take a selfie, so he sent me this on his way home

 and I sent him this on my way home

 

Happy birthday PJ, love you lots.

Chin up, it won't be long until spring.

 

January, Early Days

Happy New Year to you all, dear readers. I hope you are now fully recovered from Festive excesses.  

We had a mini get-together of the Wildshire branch of the family on New Year's Day. Our delightful DiL ST, on the left of the picture, along with her older daughter who's head top you can just spot above her mum's, put on this fabulous spread. Our other DiL, EGS, took the photo, and therefore doesn't appear in it with the rest of us. My three wise men, L to R - GM (Green Man, confusingly dressed in non-green on this occasion), GT (Ginger Two) and GO (Ginger One) all appear in line, and the rather surprised looking lady in the red jumper is Yours Truly. Three of the GDs (5, 7 and 8) were all remarkably well behaved, given the occasion, and we all had plenty to eat and drink.

 Having eaten far too much for most of December, and also over-indulged on the alcohol front (who knew there were so many different flavours of Baileys?), I felt that I had most likely put myself in the position of almost being back to square one on the pre-diabetes front, so an immediate change, as a precautionery measure, was put into action on January 2nd, the first two books of the year were read in fairly short order.

 

I have now completed 5 days following the guidelines from both books.

Three days into the New Year a project that I've been working on for the last three months or so was completed, but as it's a gift for someone I can't show it until it's been received, so instead, here is my ongoing stash-busting blanket.

 

I have now promised myself that NO new yarn will be bought this year, I probably already have enough yarn to last me until 2050! I'll include a photo of my yarn stash next time, once I've decided on my next project.

The weather so far this year has been mostly cold, and Mother Nature has a way of making beauty even in the depths of winter. Here are some images that have made me smile.

  

 Back soon x x x

 

December Photo Hunt

 With Eileen not being well, she didn't do an official hunt for December, but she did email a couple of us "regulars" to suggest Christmas Decorations as a subject.

 I chose to just take photos of trees that I came across during the month.

 Get well soon, Eileen x x x