4 broken baubles,
3 dodgy lightbulbs,
2 manic children,
and a load of deccies on the christmas tree!

The tree is up and so christmas time has officially arrived at our
house heralding in a frenzy of excitement which will build and build
over the next 9 days. I now have to watch the tree like a hawk to stop
Toby from a) trying to climb it, b) chewing the non-edible decorations,
and c) eating the chocolate decorations with the foil still on.

We had
fun and games putting it up too. We put it in the spot it always
occupies but Toby threw a wobbly as this meant moving his lego stacking
table. Then we put the table back, moved one of the sofas and relocated
the tree to the howls of another melt down. Still, as they say third
time lucky and as it turns out we ended up wondering why we’d not
thought of putting the tree in this corner in the first place!

We had a bit of good new yesterday from Mum – the halo has been taken off! Hooray!! Although she still has to wear a rigid plastic high collar for the next 3 weeks and is finding it very uncomfortable to talk and eat. But at least it’s all progressing well and she’ll soon be able to graduate to a soft collar for support which will really improve things for her.

Winter has arrived here with frosty mornings and we’ve had a busy few days. At the weekend we went to visit Mum who is still soldiering on valiantly with the halo brace. We’re all hoping that it will be off before Christmas while at the same time trying to keep in mind that it will come off when it’s job is fully done. Hopefully Mum will know one way or another at the end of the week. Thanks again for all the continuing good wishes for her, I know she is really grateful for them all.

Thanks too for all of the lovely comments about my paintings. It’s funny really as it seems like a different lifetime but then I think many of us feel that way about life before and life after children! I’m hoping to take some pictures of the rest of my portfolio of work and put them on flickr. If you wanted to see the ‘storm in a teacup’ nude picture it’s on there!

And now I’m off to make myself a new scarf seeing as I’ve managed to loose the lovely snuggly big wool red one that I made a few weeks back. And just at the time when I need it most! Feeling a bit peeved with myself!

I'm a bit of a slacker when it comes to tags. Partly because it involves thinking which I'm not so good at these days and partly because there's not much to tell that I've not already blathered on about! Now Christmas toy knitting is out of the way and things are calmer I've had a little time to ponder 8 random things and I've dredged up some vaguely noteworthy things from the dim and distant past and so here goes…

My favourite childhood book was The Water Babes by Charles Kingsley and I still try and live my life just like Mrs do-as-you-would-be-done-by.

When I was six I won a fancy dress competition. There was a slogan that year "plant a tree in €˜'73" hence the tree costume! (thanks Mum!)

If you'd have asked me at 9 years old what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'd have replied "€œMrs Donny Osmond€"

As a 14 year-old on a school outward-bound week in Wales I took up a
dare to do a midnight streak down the length of the dormitory corridor
and was caught by a very perturbed male teacher – he didn't know where
to shine his torch! It earned me the nickname of
"white-bits"€™!

When I was 18 (and pert in all the right places) I posed nude for some photos in college which were displayed in the end of year exhibition. Not to worry though, I ended up marrying the photographer! (of course now I'm older and more saggy I've become less of an exhibitionist!)

I trained as an illustrator but hardly ever paint or draw these days. I think it's because when I paint I need to work on a piece uninterrupted until it's finished and just don't get the chance to do that these days. Luckily knitting is much easier to pick up and put down! (these are a couple of paintings done in my early 20's**)

I've lived in many different towns up and down the country. I'd like to move just one more time – to somewhere distinctly un-towny.

The older I get, the more I crave peace, quiet and simple pleasures.

Thanks to Moogsmum, Maddy and Patsy who all tagged me months ago! I'm not going to pass on the tag but I will pass on lots of good wishes for a good weekend!

** have taken off the nude painting photo after an email that suggested it might cause offence. I put it on as I thought it was fairly gentle nudity and I'm sorry to anyone who was offended, you can rest assured that normal knitted bunny service will resume and no more nudity!