This December...

Well, December has been a lot.

The month started with the usual yoga, pilates and massage sessions ahead of a weekend away visiting family in Devon. We’d decided to stop en-route in a new-to-us part of the country overnight, which as it turned out didn’t actually result in any less driving, but never mind.

A few days before we were due to set off we learnt that the hotel we were staying in had had to close which meant we wouldn’t be staying there after all. We’d booked through Mr & Mrs Smith and they were brilliant helping us find alternative accommodation. We were fairly relaxed about the location as long as it was in the general vicinity of the original hotel; they provided three alternatives and we chose Number One Bruton in Somerset, which turned out to be a brilliant choice.

It’s a great little town, and it felt like we got the VIP treatment unbeknown to us arriving on their ‘Christmas evening’ when the town was packed, the shops were open late and Santa abseiled into the festivities, like you do. The hotel and its restaurant Briar was fabulous too, and I’m sure we’ll be back again - it was that good.

We also spotted a sofa we liked in one of the windows and went in to find out more and try it out. As the sofa was in the window, we also climbed into the window to test it out - and added to the live theatre no doubt in Bruton that night! MOH originally pointed it out he says as a joke, but when we looked we realised it was actually rather nice and will go well in our lounge, and be the basis of changing the decor in there. I think he’s partly regretting it already!

A perk of being a hotel guest was entry into the gardens of The Newt in Somerset and no surprises but the gardens were amazing, even in early December. I’ve so much more to share from there, in fact I was part way through writing a post about overnighting in Bruton when life took over, so look out for that soon. Everything at The Newt was done on a grand scale and with no scrimping, I mean this was the Christmas decoration as you entered the main barn, see what I mean?

Travelling on to Devon later that day was ‘interesting’ - I’ve never seen so much water on the roads, and nor have I driven through so much standing water (well standing is a misnomer it was teeming off the surrounding fields with nowhere else to go). We arrived at family safely though, even if we were a tad bemused and bewildered by our onward journey.

While in Devon we visited one of our all time favourite National Trust properties joining in the celebrations to mark 100 years of Coleton Fishacre. As well as the house and gardens, there was the added learn to Charleston sessions, and my personal favourite - the Speakeasy, serving real (but understandably tiny) cocktails.

Preparing for Christmas

It really did feel like a Christmas started that weekend. Back home it was time to collect the wreath for our back door and with so much going on this year I ordered a wreath from the florist whose workshop I would have attended if time allowed. Isn’t it gorgeous?

I think the bad weather must have followed us home though, and the wreath spent its first week or so in the heat pump trellis enclosure sheltering from the winds, and to save me retrieving it from around the garden. But thankfully since it’s been on the back door the weather has behaved a bit more, and we get to admire it every time we go in and out.

I’ve even relented and for the first time ever we’ve had some outside Christmas lights. Well they were the twinkly garden lights we had strung across our old garden which have been in the garage since we moved. I had the creative idea to use them to decorate the green garden obelisk which is also having its first outing from the garage!

When they’re lit at night they look just like a tree might do - in the daylight they look a bit odd, but it is what it is. I also managed to snap a weird reflective picture, which I sort of quite like but I’m not sure why!

The lights have been such a success that we think next year we might get a real tree and have that outside on the patio instead, and instead of having a tree in the house. I think secretly MOH is still hoping for those inflatable kind of decorations, but deep down he knows that’s not going to happen.

I went along to two Sewing Group Christmas evenings on successive nights and both were successful. At the first one of the ladies shared the recipe for her fantabulous Baileys trifle I’d admired and tried to recreate last year, as well as bringing a trifle along for us all to taste - taking her bowl home empty too. At the second we all made a folded Scandinavian Star which, while pretty once it was done, was a bit of a head scratcher!

I’ll probably make some more at some point, but there was no time this month as I’d already decided, fairly last minute, to embroider some Christmas cards - unusually being relatively realistic with the number I could complete, and therefore only block printing a sensible amount.

Embroidering sheep in Christmas Jumpers - on some of those sample fabrics from Harrogate - became my December task, and I’m really not that sad about it. They were all different, and they all turned out fab.

Not all plain sailing though

Which given the amount of water we’d driven through in Devon feels entirely inappropriate, but as a turn of phrase it’s a good summary. The utility company from our previous house (yes, the one we moved from in the summer of 2023) decided that this month was a good time to send us a final bill. In fact it was the third final bill we’d received from them - the first we were expecting and paid as you would; the second was a surprise and due to an error on their systems so they waived the majority of it. So a third final bill felt a tad unnecessary, especially as it covered a period of some 16 months when we weren’t the legal owners of the house - and it took them over a year to present it.

Calling them to discuss it didn’t solve anything, in fact the line went mysteriously dead when I asked them to explain why ‘back billing’ wasn’t relevant. It wasn’t an insignificant amount either, and was clearly not right and paying it wasn’t right either. In the end we got some great advice from our local Citizens Advice Bureau and raised a complaint with our previous supplier. I filed that on Christmas Eve and by the final Monday of the month it was all resolved, the bill cancelled and our previous account closed as they said they would do back in July 2023.

And the reason given for cancelling the bill? Back billing, which I’d asked about in that first phone call - it’s all so unnecessary, and has caused unwanted stress and paperwork. I’m sure we aren’t the only ones either, and I’m also sure that saying that unless it was resolved satisfactorily we would raise it with the energy ombudsmen didn’t influence things at all. But anyway it is sorted, which is a big relief.

And then our dishwasher and our heating decided to join in with both of them having a hiccup or two. The dishwasher stopped mid cycle and said ‘no more’ and so we need to call out an engineer. In the meantime it’s washing up for us - which reminds me daily of why we’ve had dishwashers for the last twenty plus years!

The heating decided to join the fun and have a blip on Christmas Day, thankfully we weren’t hosting Christmas this year as no dishwasher and temperamental heating would have made it ‘fun’. We do have an engineer booked to look at the heating for early next week as that’s our priority to be fixed as you’d expect. It is working kind of and we do have hot water, it’s just the system isn’t very happy and isn’t right and I have more photos than I ever thought possible of the messages and status of the main thermostat. But at least it is no longer alerting us every 46 minutes (yes, I timed it) which meant that neither of us got a whole load of sleep on Monday, so that’s something!

Shaken not stirred

There was more gallivanting before Christmas too with a night out and subsequent shopping day in London. For the past few years we’ve been out for a pre-Christmas steak at the Hawksmoor in Air Street, and it’s one of those things that has fast become a favourite thing to do. This year we stayed over near Kings Cross and headed back towards Regent Street the next morning to secure our traditional mince pies from Fortnum & Mason and check out their Christmas department, and their windows. London was busy though and we were glad to get back home, but not before we tried the new Martini Bar in the Hawksmoor’s newest venture in the St Pancras hotel.

That too was very nice, and somehow I think we’ll be back there before next Christmas as it’s a very civilised way to wait for a train!

If you want to read my ramblings from previous monthly updates then please check out my ‘This is’ series.

This November...

I didn’t think there was much to say about November, but it turns out I was wrong. We finally put the garden to bed ahead of the cold snap that was forecast, and which duly arrived, but it felt odd as the week beforehand was almost tropical, or tropical for this time of year anyway.

In the kitchen

I picked my peppers and hoped they’d ripen more indoors, and that’s pretty much the case - they got to a lovely autumnal orange (and more orange than below) before heading for one of our dinners.

I did make some jewel coloured chilli jelly, but as yet I haven’t made the second batch I hoped to - all is not lost though as while my crab apples are finished, the recipe can also use Bramleys and I picked some of those up in the village shop. The limiting factor has been a lack of jars, but it’s amazing how quickly they can accumulate when you put your mind to it!

We’re continuing our Reformer Pilates journey, and with some progress already I’m sure. MOH was asked how he was getting on and likened himself to ‘an elephant on roller skates’ which made me laugh, but it’s something I also totally relate to! Our last session was a hard one and learning some very technical and traditional moves, thankfully our instructor knows more about our bodies now and was there to catch me as I toppled forward at one point, for which I’m very grateful.

Stir up Sunday has been successfully completed, even though ours mostly took place on the Saturday. We’ve now got a stock of three various sized Christmas puddings lovingly made by MOH. Christmas puddings have become his thing and are much requested on family visits each year, and this year was no different. Our main job with them now is to regularly feed them with brandy until a week or so before the big day.

Crafting, radio and game

The start of the month saw me heading off to a new village hall for the Living Threads ‘sewing room sort out sale’ and I left with a bag full of inspiration and plenty of ideas. On the way home I checked out a new to me farm shop - Harkers Farm Shop if you’re local, and it’s definitely one I’m adding to my regular visits list. For a relatively small shop it was jam packed full of goodies from farm fresh vegetables, local meats and pies and plenty more besides. Definitely a new farm shop unlocked for me.

I’ve been in a bit of a quandary about what to sew lately, and so having not sorted anything out to take to my evening sewing group I grabbed some embroidery that I’d been toying with for a while. It’s been on trips with me but hasn’t actually made it out of its pouch and started on, but that’s changed.

In fact since I’ve been forced to slow down a bit after catching a stinker of a cold in the second half of the month, I’ve finished the second part of the embroidery. The paler section at the top I completed while we were visiting Gargano’s Peninsular last year, so it was long overdue. I’ve also worked out how I’m going to use this - yes, another pouch - but there’s more to do, and embroider, yet.

I even got around to doing some more Indian Block Printing, and it wasn’t as much of a faff to set-up or clear down as I envisaged, so that was good and I can see that I’ll be doing this more regularly. I just need to remember not to go overboard on the printing side as that leaves me with a pile of embroidering, which vies for time along with everything else.

Our favourite restaurant in Newark held their annual game night, and it was delicious. Of course it was on the same day that I was going to Harrogate for the Knit & Stitch Show with sewing group friends, so it made for a busy day, but both were well worth it and very enjoyable.

We even managed a port tasting earlier in the month too discovering some more favourites, and potentially even a Christmas present or two - but what’s even better is, we had a great night out and managed to time it so we could get the bus home. Writing that though, makes me feel old!

And we finished the month with the restoration of one of our Saturday morning habits of listening to Huey Morgan’s show on 6 Music in a little bit more style than we have been. For a while now we’ve only been able to listen to it on Alexa, and that’s meant it’s been on in the background, but now with the addition of a clever streamer box that’s changed and we can listen to it actually in the room. Sometimes it’s the small things isn’t it? And no, I don’t know why it’s taken us so long either, but there you go…

Markets and discoveries

I’ve not ventured too far from home this month, but there has been a visit to Nottingham and another to Harrogate for the Knit & Stitch show. I’ll share more from the show another day, but Harrogate is very much on my visit list - it looks a beautiful place and full of independent shops and more. Though I might be swayed by one of the coffee station venues at the craft show, which was in the beautifully restored Harrogate Theatre - very grand!

In Nottingham I finally ticked off a visit to Sneinton Markets, and it won’t be my last. As well as the craft shop I planned to visit we also discovered a great independent bakery, a curios shop where I stumbled across a stack of vintage fabric for £9, a restaurant I want to try and an Asian Grocery shop. And that was on a Thursday when the area was relatively quiet, I’m sure on Fridays and Saturdays it’s buzzing, I’m already planning when I can go back!

If you want to read my ramblings from previous monthly updates then please check out my ‘This is’ series.

This October...

We have made progress in the garage - and so much so, that the garden sofa is also in there and there’s more floorspace visible than ever before. It didn’t take as long as I expected and we managed to finally empty some boxes from our move. It looks a lot different now to the before pictured below, which is good news. We need to make some more time to do a bit more but we’re getting there.

It’s been a month for random new stuff - including a new kitchen bin, and the shock of realising how expensive kitchen bins are! Though I think the one we ended up is worth it, it was over £100 and reduced at that. I looked at some half the price and the quality was awful, so I guess it’s a cost versus quality decision.

We’ve also had a new internet router which meant an afternoon reconnecting so many devices - two TVs, one dishwasher, one printer, laptops, ipads and phones, the Alexas, the doorbell and numerous Tapo plugs and I’m so over it. Once we were done, and it was the printer that was the most troublesome, our provider app started working offering a quick way to move everything over - if only that had sprung into life a couple of hours earlier. But we’ll know for next time…

I’ve joined a new patchwork group who meet twice a month about 30 minutes from here, so that’s two sewing groups now which mostly, but not always, seem to meet on consecutive days. Ah well, it is what it is. I’ve also finally persuaded MOH to start Reformer Pilates with me, as I think we’ll both benefit from it and the introductory offer was too good to turn down. I’ve since signed up for extra sessions, and we’ll both go once a week. I know that MOH is finding it hard, which I think is partly because he’s not had a lifetime of attending exercise classes, so things that I don’t need to think about, such as cat-cow stretches, he is completely bemused by. He was also given ‘hamstring homework’ which I don’t think he was too impressed about, but he knows they are tight.

I’m a bit peeved with the NHS decision to move to 28 day prescribing, which in effect would double the cost of some of my medication and triple the cost of another if I didn’t already have a pre-paid prescription. I do thankfully, and one of my medications will stay on a three monthly cycle, which I discovered when I challenged the information provided. It’s also a whole host of more admin, and needing to tie in trips into Newark to be when the chemist is actually open (so not evenings and Saturday afternoons). The chemist will now pick up the admin for my now monthly prescriptions, which I’m grateful for - but it does seem like a job creation and cost based exercise, which has nothing to do with the reasons the NHS cite and give very little consideration to those living more rurally.

Preserving and foraging

I’ve not spent much time in the garden gardening after the sprint to get all our lavender bushes cut by the start of the month, but I have enjoyed seeing the autumn colours develop. I have plans of where I’ll move our succulents and pots to to overwinter, some will be in the garage (now there’s space for them) and others will be deep in the borders. A job for next month, before it gets too cold. I also want to sort out my bulbs as some are in quite small pots, and I think I can probably upgrade them and give them some new soil too, but that’s on my to do list.

This month we’ve been foraging from our neighbour’s garden - foraging in the loosest term though, the chestnuts and walnuts were handed over in a carrier bag on their doorstep, but you know what I mean. The chestnuts were hard work, and I think we left them too long before roasting them, lesson learnt for next year.

The walnuts are amazing - we dried some in our plant room overnight (pictured above) though most of the ones with the black on didn’t make it. They are quite hard to get out of the shell, but once you do the reward is amazing.

We’ve had so many crab apples this year. I’m not sure if that’s because they’re responding to the pruning the tree had last year, or because as others have said it’s a mast year. I’ll share another post on my chilli jelly soon, but it was quite the operation and resulted in the most gorgeous jewel coloured jars, even if there were a few more than I expected.

I’m planning to make another type of crab apple jelly if I get the chance, as there’s definitely enough little apples. But this jelly strainer from Lakeland was invaluable, and I don’t think I would have tackled making a jelly without it. Highly recommend.

The other thing I’ve loved this month was my Bernina day in London. Not only did I get to learn even more about my Bernina which I’ve been able to put into use at home, but I also got to wander around old City haunts, seeing how things had changed and how things had stayed the same. It’s strange though that after spending nigh on thirty years working in the City, it’s possible to feel like a bit of a visitor and not bump into anyone I knew - though it’s been ten or so years since I commuted to the City every day (and in the days when you mostly did go into the office every day).

While wandering around the shops I saw a skirt in M&S and fell in love with it. I didn’t buy it at the time - as the regular length dragged along the floor - but I have since ordered it, and I still love it but I’m not quite sure how I feel about the fact that it’s made from recycled polyester.

It’s not an everyday skirt (!) but I’m also not sure where I’ll wear it, but I have it in case the appropriate situation arises…

Castles, crows and Great Dixter

We’ve been out and about a fair bit this month seeing Divine Comedy in Nottingham and the Counting Crows in Wolverhampton. We’ve seen Divine Comedy before, many years ago at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich - at the time I didn’t have much knowledge of their songs, but since then I’ve been educated by MOH. The Nottingham concert was fab and we had great seats booking them months in advance. There’s a recurring theme with me and concerts though, as I often don’t know much about the band before we go to see them (happened with The Killers and The Courteeners too!), and it’s the same for the Counting Crows - I probably do know some of their songs, I just don’t associate songs and bands together very well (which is why I was so impressed with the Google music search last month - a total revelation for me!)

Towards the end of the month we had a few days away with my in-laws in a cottage near Robertsbridge in East Sussex. The cottage had a view over Bodiam Castle from its back windows, and despite Storm Benjamin we did get out for a quick explore and breath of fresh air, and without getting rained on too which was quite the achievement.

I was keen to visit Great Dixter which was also close by, and we spent some time exploring there the next day before heading into Rye for lunch. What I loved about Great Dixter was how lived in and how un-gardened the garden was, which may sound like a criticism but isn’t. It was a joyous mix of colour, even at this time of year and I’ve now more posts to write, photos to edit and share here.

It’s definitely seems true that as we get towards the end of the year the months speed up, does anyone else feel like that?

If you want to read my previous monthly updates in my ‘This is’ series you’re very welcome.