This February...

There has at long last been a break in the rain! There’s also been glimpses of the sun, and for a couple of days I’d even go as far as saying it was sunny. Whether or not spring is really on its way or if the weather is fooling us, I’m not so sure but I am glad to see the cheerful snowdrops and even more cheery daffodils appear in the hedgerows.

Our heating is fixed, and it’s stayed working better than it ever has which is even better news. I’m not looking forward to the bill coming in though, as I suspect it will be more than it usually would be, but life, hey. We’ve spent afternoons and early evenings watching the Six Nations tournament, and have quite gotten into the Premier League darts matches each week too, and we’ve finally started on the second season of The Night Manager - though we had only just watched the first one!

There’s been more speedwatch sessions, and the traffic is still high, and faster than it should be. In one of our sessions the highest speed we recorded was 59 mph, and it isn’t the first time one of our volunteer group has recorded that level of speed, which is shocking for a 30 mph limit - or it is to me anyway.

Somewhere along the way this month I seem to have crocked my ankle, or more specifically my achilles, and I’m not sure how which is odd as I’d expect something dramatic for the amount of pain there’s been. But some rest, my trusty Italian ankle support and putting my foot up and a painkiller or two has taken the soreness down many notches, what really seemed to have fixed it though is one of my regular massages. To be honest I wasn’t sure if I would be able to bear anyone touch it at one point, so for this gentle, recuperating massage to have had the effect it has has been wonderful.

I had a day in London at the Garden Press Event speaking to suppliers and leading figures in the garden industry, learning lots and with plenty more to share from the day in the next few weeks. That same day my blog turned thirteen, a fully fledged teenager now which hardly seems possible. To celebrate I picked up some glorious cut flower hyacinths, which I’ve never seen as cut flowers before, little did I know that my challenges with drooping hyacinths were about to start!

To round off the day in London I visited the most fabulous haberdashery just off Oxford Street, all the time wondering why I didn’t know of MacCulloch & Wallis while I lived in London - and more amazingly, I left without a purchase too. Then we headed to The Barbary in Covent Garden for dinner, which was fabulous and a much smaller than we expected restaurant.

It’s been a busy month in our home too, with a couple of new blinds fitted on the small but long front windows and the blue chandelier was assembled and installed - and we love it.

I’m not sure our electrician loved putting it up quite so much, but he agrees it’s a good addition to our stairway. We gambled on the length, reducing the drop by 50 cms, gauging this just by him holding the wire in place, and we got it right first time, which he definitely was pleased about, but I know if it wasn’t right he would have insisted on changing it. But phew, from us all in this case!

We also took delivery of our new sofas, much earlier than expected. They were due towards the end of March, but the company are ahead of themselves at the moment and so they’re here already - and have only been here a day or two, but even on the day they were delivered they just felt right for our space.

We’d hoped to book a decorator in before they arrived, and decide on the colour scheme too - but we haven’t, and so we’ll sort that out another time. In some ways it’s good to have them so we can be as sure as we can be that the colour we finally go for works, but in the meantime our house is currently auditioning as a sofa showroom and a cushion mountain!

I’ve finished the last of my ‘stretch project’ quilts, which I’m glad about as they really have dictated my sewing time, and I really have so much more that I want to sew. I will still sew more charity quilts, but not on the scale and voracity that I have this past year.

Finishing the last of my one-a-month-charity quilts also means I’ve completed the last mystery block of the month, so now I have twelve blocks to assemble into a quilt top which has taken some maths to make sure I have enough material to carry out my plans. I’ll be sharing more soon on both of these year long projects, so watch out for those posts.

I’ve realised that over the past year I’ve not found as much time as I’d like to ‘play’ when crafting, and trying out things I’ve not done before, this month though I’ve had more time for that and have found myself tackling a series of sewn miniature items. They’re not perfect and I’ll find a use for them (and will most likely share more here at some point) but it’s been good to experiment and get things out of my head!

I’ve had a request for a rosette from my mum, so I need to make her one of those for an upcoming family wedding - which is also a good reminder that I need to sort myself out an outfit too, but it’s a tricky one as April weather could be literally anything - wish me luck!

This January...

It’s just about still January, which this year hasn’t felt anywhere near as long as it has previously. I’m not sure why that is though, but I sure am grateful. Maybe it’s because we’ve been keeping ourselves busy, who knows.

The dishwasher which had a blip last month is now fixed which is great news. I can’t tell you how much I don’t miss washing up! Thankfully it was an easy fix, but also a worrying one. The cause of the burning smell was the plug which the engineer can only surmise had worked its way loose and was arking. When we saw the state of the plug we were glad we’d stopped using the dishwasher, but now with a new plug on the dishwasher and a new socket we’re fully operational, well dishwasher wise anyway.

The heating, which while it’s now working, still isn’t fixed. The engineers spent two days here at the start of the month with the result being the part they needed wasn’t in stock. There’s been issues getting the part, and hopefully it’s now arrived as they’re due back to completely resolve whatever is wrong early next week.

Of course, like it does, the heating going wrong happened at the coldest time of the year and we didn’t have any heating when there was a dusting of snow on the ground. We do have two fan heaters and they helped a lot in short bursts at a time, but fully heating our double height in places kitchen diner as it usually would be wasn’t really an option.

Wearing layers, adding more and more covers to the bed in a reverse kind of Princess and the Pea arrangement and planning meals to cook slowly in the oven were all tactics we used, and worked in their way - and hopefully, as I say, it will be fixed for good shortly - I’ll leave it at that for now I think, but there may be more here at some point.

It’s not all gloom and doom though as I’ve spotted that our snowdrops are starting to appear, and they’re such cheery plants that I can’t help but smile when I see them.

We’ve been out and about including taking part in our village’s Community Speedwatch team in the hope that something will be done about the traffic speeding through the village. There was a concert in Nottingham to see Biffy Clyro, who I’ll admit hasn’t been on my radar before and probably is unlikely to become a regular listen for me.

We ended the month with an evening in Newark trying two new-to-us pubs as part of the annual Beermuda Beer Festival. We tried beers we wouldn’t usually drink, including a sour beer that was thick with fruit and looked more like a fruit shake than a beer, which MOH described as ‘the strangest beer he’s ever tried’. I spotted a Space Invaders table top in the first pub, and I haven’t seen one of those for a long, long time; it brought back memories as we used to have these at home at times, which admittedly not everyone does.

I decided to make some small changes here on the blog, which I’m sure you haven’t even noticed. Previously the categories I used, and are displayed at the top right of my blog were Living, Loving and Exploring, but I felt they were no longer right for me. As you’ve probably just glanced up there, they’re now Living, Loving and Making, which feels a much better fit for my content.

My Christmas wreath is still up, and still going strong and I’m not taking it down until it’s looking worse for wear. MOH mentions occasionally that Christmas has gone, but as I point out not on our back door, not just yet anyway!

I have indulged myself with some end of year nerdiness, sharing posts recapping and reflecting on 2025:

• That was 2025

• Quilts of 2025

• Other Makes of 2025

• My top 10 posts of 2025.

We’ve even ordered those new sofa’s that we saw in Bruton back at the start of December. They won’t arrive until around April so our next decision is what colour paint to use in the lounge - the current favourite is Dibber by Farrow & Ball which will look great with the sofas, but looks less great with the builder’s white, so we’ll probably aim for something a bit softer, but possibly lighter than the suggested Slipper Satin which has been dubbed ‘dull mushroom’ here - you can see why we’re not so keen, can’t you?!

January always brings the Newark Quilt Show and I’ve been back there looking at the glorious quilts and perusing the supplier’s wares, and even picking up my Christmas present from one of them. I’ve plenty more gorgeous quilts from there to share, so do look out for those, and for the scrappy rosettes I made at one of the workshops there.

I’ve gone full steam ahead on a new way for my scraps too. This year I’m aiming to make my scraps into houses, and they really are the cutest to put together.

After an instructional blip I now have a stack of houses and a stack of roofs, which I need to marry up. In fact part of the fun of using my scraps in this way is choosing which to use together. It really is the small things.

I’m still thinking about and finalising my quilt plans for this year, along with the other makes that I want to make sure get onto the list though I expect to share my plans in the next few weeks. I couldn’t wait to share my new picnic rug though, I’m just so pleased with how it turned out, especially as it started from humble beginnings with a random scrap pack and a bit of an idea.

I still have one final charity quilt and one final mystery block of the month to go, and I need to get going with both of those as I’ve not started either yet. I’d been so good at keeping up with my stretch project and my own blocks but I haven’t yet been able to get myself back on track. I do wonder if it’s partly as once the mystery blocks are done, then the real work of assembling the quilt top begins and I think that will be a big task, let alone actually finishing the quilt completely. I’m also toying with the idea of going ‘off piste’ with the assembly, and I guess deep down I’m thinking that if that final block isn’t done then I don’t need to consider the next steps. Don’t our minds play tricks on us at times?

But anyway, I will get there and I will finish the final charity quilt in my stretch project and my own block. I already know that I won’t be signing myself up for quite so many charity quilts next year, though I will still make some - it’s just that there’s so much more I want to make, even if not all of them take the easy route. More on that soon I’m sure.

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

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.