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!

Cut hyacinths in a vase on our kitchen island

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.

The blue chandelier hanging in the stairwell with our McQueen picture behind 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.

A sneak peek of my new sofa and cushions - paisley patterned velvet with orangey/gold scatter cushions

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!

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:

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.

My finished colourwash picnic rug draped over my mustard kitchen sofa

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.