I hope your new year has got off to a good start. Here we're still acclimatising to our term time routines. It always takes a week or so to adjust, especially in the mornings as Toby is definitely not a morning person – something not helped by the fact that he's usually awake for a couple of hours during the night. We've also all come down with colds (though everyone seems to have one of those at the moment) and I've been nursing mine with lemon and honey tea (with the odd nip of whisky) and lots of soothing knitting.

 

 

 

 

I have too many unfinished projects on the go at the moment; a pair of wrist-warmers waiting for thumbs; three quarters of a sock; a barely started shawl; a nearly finished scarf; around 30 assorted animals at varying degrees of development; heaps of animal clothes waiting for buttons and seaming… and yet I also find myself trying to resist the desire to start a new crochet blanket (I'm succeeding at the moment but keep catching myself daydreaming about blankety ideas) and I have a yearning for a knitted tea cosy too – something chunky and textured perhaps. I'm definitely in a flitting knitting phase and can't seem to settle down to work on a single project and see it through.

What I really need to do is have a proper new year sort out, tidy up all of my baskets and bags of bits, inventory everything and impose some order on my woolly chaos. The start of a new year seems like a good time to tackle such a task and once I've got rid of my cold I'll make a start but for now I'm heading back to the sofa with a cup of warm tea and a hot water bottle for a bit more knitty mess making 🙂

Do you have any new year desires to clear the decks and start afresh, or de-clutter and get organised? Do tell your new year plans if you have time.

Until next time, keep well and warm and dry – it looks like we have a cold snap heading our way over the next week which is bad news for my plum tree. Yesterday I noticed that it had it's first blossom which is earlier that we've ever known it before and not a good sign for a good crop of plums later in the year. I hope it feels the change in the wind and decides to wait a while before swelling the rest of it's buds.

 

 

Just popping in very quickly to wish you all the best for 2016. Here are some of my happy moments from 2015. The year we got a new flock of hens; Toby had a hair cut and was very excited by his new appearance; Amy started her GCSE year and did brilliantly in her mocks just before Christmas (mostly As and A*s and a few Bs) now she just has to do it for real in May; there were lots of wood walks; a makeover for our bedroom and of course lots of knitting for me.

 

 

While I'm here, I thought I'd look back on some previous years mosaic round-ups and feel all nostalgic now!

2014

 

2013

 

2012

 

2011

 

2010

 

 

2009

 

 

2008

 

Will be back soon, once the Christmas dust has been hoovered up and I'm in the swing of things again, til then I wish you a happy and healthy beginning to the new year x

 

 

Today I am knitting lace, eating clementines and brazil nuts, listening to the sweet voice of Kate Rusby and feeling a deep sense of well-being, calm and gentle joy. Because today the postman has brought a brown envelope containing not more forms but some actual good news. Thanks to some extra evidence that we submitted a couple of weeks back the decision regarding Toby's entitlement has been changed in his favour and we will no longer need to go to a tribunal. I am so deeply grateful that we've had the support of Toby's head teacher and the very eminent clinical psychologist who originally assessed and diagnosed Toby's autism. They both took time to write very succinct and compelling evidence about the severity of his condition and these two letters have obviously made much more impact on the decision than anything we as parents submitted. Anyway, it's resolved and a great weight has been lifted from me – today I am relief personified 🙂

While I'm here I'll show you some pictures of what else I've been knitting lately.

 

 

There have been socks on my needles! My first ever pair knitted in a soft dove grey and a second pair in a mustardy yellow. Both of these pairs from a lovely simple pattern- Laule'a by Cabinfour using worsted weight yarn (which means they knit up quickly). I've used lovely soft Rooster Almerino aran in 'shimmer' and 'custard' which I had in my stash.

 

 

In other news I had a very nice mention on the Love Knitting blog the other day as part of their '5 minutes with…' series. If you'd like to read it you can find it here.

 

 

Lastly, I'll leave you with some of the glorious skies that I've snapped over the last few weeks and put on Instagram. The last few days have been flat, dull and grey but when it has been clear the sky has been beautiful.

 

 

 

Thanks for popping in and visiting with me. The School Christmas break starts this coming Friday at lunchtime and so I don't expect I'll be around as much but I will be back to wish you a very merry Christmas so see you then x