Weeks 15 and 15a

Weeks 15 and 15a

Sorry to go AWOL, I've been a bit busy.

To begin at the beginning. Week 15 turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. The lecture we were expecting was cancelled, but as the essay really was finished, printed, bound and ready to hand in, I couldn't take advantage of the extra time for last minute revisions. So I handed it in, both paper and electronic versions (that was the challenging bit), drank coffee, and grabbed a quick tutorial/feedback on the crits. I found it demoralising at the time, but when I'd calmed down a bit, got a good night's sleep, and reread the comments, they weren't too bad. I am less sure of what I'm doing than I was a month ago, but I think the staff would think that was a good thing...

By that time, however, we were bracing ourselves for The Visit. It was Mr & Mrs Cheese Minor's 10th wedding anniversary, and they celebrated with a couple of nights in Berlin. Which meant that the little guys celebrated by coming to stay with us.

I'd spotted that Winchester City Mill, which is one of the VHC's favourite places, was having a milling day, so we went to have a look. This might not have been a good idea on the Sunday before Christmas, but the local buses  were remarkably quiet, unlike the park and ride. We bought  flour at the mill, and made bread the next day, before heading to Mottisfont for their Nutcracker trail. 

As we expected, the little guys loved the trail, especially the automata - and the ice cream (!) in the outdoor cafe. (Wensleydale and I opted for tea and cake.)

And on the third day, we headed for the Winchester Science Centre. Unfortunately their Christmas show in the Plantetarium had finished, but the little guys were quite happy with the usual one, plus plenty of time to explore the science exhibits. The cafe is good too - some of the best sandwiches I've had, and very generously filled.

You may be surprised to see no mention of Manor Farm in this itinerary. We had planned a visit, but Babybel didn't want to go!

After the little guys went home we needed time to recover, so we were glad to have no more social engagements till the 26th, when Babybel ran her first Boxing Day race with her mum and dad - 3 km in 20 minutes 'without stopping'! She wasn't first, but she wasn't last either, and she was so proud of herself!

The quiet time allowed plenty of time for sampling trees/hands/branches. (Second left is the beginning of a branch, whatever you think it looks like!) I've also been researching some artists recommended by my tutor, who seems to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of contemporary art. 

I also made some Christmas ornaments. I came across this lovely idea too late for this year, but I worked out if I started straight away and made two ornaments a month, we could have our own Advent Bough next year.  So next year the fortnightly ornament will replace the weekly book - I just hope it doesn't fizzle out like the books did. This is the last book, a variation on the palm leaf book I made earlier. 

 

For the ornaments, I chose a colour scheme of red, rust, yellow, dark blue and cream - which is not a good idea when you want to make Christmas trees like this. As it turned out, I didn't have enough suitable green buttons, and barely enough cream ones, which is why my tree is an odd shape. I have a lot of buttons, but I was surprised how many of them were shank buttons, which wouldn't work.

I made a couple more ornaments, as you can see, from ideas here and here. My intention is that they will all be different, more or less.

We have a few more quiet days now until New Years Eve when the soon-to-be Spanish branch of the family ( that is, soon-to-be family, they are already Spanish...) are coming over for a few days. Then we hit the ground running again when term starts again. Must get more rest!

You win some, you lose some…

Yesterday was going to be the day we went to the Discovery Centre to see their latest exhibition and buy some family Christmas cards, [Last minute? Me?] before going on to Brasserie Blanc for Wensleydale’s birthday lunch.

It had snowed a bit, but nothing to put off even the most trepid of pensioners [yes, he’s a pensioner now, too]. We used the park and ride because it gets you nearer to the action than the car parks – and we’d seen what the queues for the car parks were like when I took him down to the doctor’s on Saturday. [He was right, it is sciatica, so he now has some horrendous pain killers and an X-ray].

But the Discovery Centre was closed ‘for maintenance’.

So we went and had our lunch early [very good it was too] and got home in time to wrap the presents [me] and put up the tree [him].

Not enough tinsel [Family joke.] [Must remember to move my coat of the newel post before the hordes family arrive tomorrow.]

I was due to go to the gym this morning, so I thought I’d go into the Discovery Centre to get the cards, before getting the bus home – the top end of Winchester being the closest I wanted to get to the shops on the last Saturday before Christmas. There was a little pressure as we are having a family do for the birthday boy tomorrow, when I can save money by hand-delivering the cards.

We woke up to this.

I fought my conscience for all of 10 seconds and decided I wasn’t going - which gave lots more time for getting ready for tomorrow, but left a dilemma about the cards.

So after we’d cooked and cleaned I played around with some old photos and flauntr, which is not the most user-friendly of the free photo editing programs, but has a wide range of effects, frames etc.

After a lot of muttering from the mad woman in the corner, as she tried to work out how to get her nice new Epson printer to print a card, rather than a picture in the middle of a piece of card, I made some Christmas cards for the family. Babybel plays a starring role, you may be surprised to hear.

And one, dear readers, for you. A photo from last January as it happens, not this December.

 

 

 

 

And then the sun went down looking like this.

Which I suspect means it’s going to get very very cold…

I misspoke …

when I said that the average number of presents per two year old on my Christmas list was 6.

It is now 7. Although I’ve bottled out of wrapping up this one and just put into a big purple gift bag.

Pink, isn’t it? Top and tights from Sainsbury's dyed with Dylon Flamingo Pink in the washing machine, and stamped with daisies, as it’s a sort of Upsy Daisy outfit. Then  I wrestled 3 metres of net into a mock tutu.

I sort of followed the tutorial here, except that I used half the amount of net [and you can see how full it is] and rather than knotting it onto elastic I sewed channels in the folded net and threaded the elastic though.

Knotting would be much quicker.

And if Babybel’s mummy is reading this – it was your mum’s idea – I just made it!

This is a little more restrained. The image on the right is the square Kandinsky circles from the previous spread, scanned in black and white. The folded thing leaping out of the page is a photocopy painted with something – probably Koh-i-Noor – there's another one lurking under the blue monoprint on the left. And the small photo is of a sort-of-stump work C&G piece I developed from the scan. I painted Bondaweb with silver paint in rough squares, ironed it onto black velvet – and then added some couching, needle lace leaves and some raised lumps for buds. [Can you tell I’m not a fan of stumpwork?]

Bah! Humbug!

well, not really.

I visited the Cathedral Christmas Market this morning – which seemed to be bigger than ever. There was no-one on the aquaplaning – er – skating rink, but the stalls were quite busy for a wet Monday morning. I could have spent a fortune – but I limited myself to a secret present which will not be revealed here – and this little lady. And although she is only about 10 cm high she has another 4 dollies inside her.

When I got home I decided it was time to wrap presents. Which I hate. Although we have quite a short Christmas present list, there are a few other important dates in December. Like birthdays [3] and anniversaries [1].

I am not a skillful wrapper-upper – unlike my brother, who wraps with mathematical precision in Extremely Good Taste. These days we send him and his wife goats – or midwives – or last year, a toilet. Which are, perhaps surprisingly, much easier to wrap, and simpler to post [they live in NYC]. [I have a sudden mental image of several goats coming down the steps from their brownstone and grazing in Washington Park …]

If you want to know what I’m wittering about, – Oxfam Unwrapped. Strongly recommended if you have people you don’t want to wrap presents for, or you've given up trying to find things in Extremely Good Taste, and got bored with sending things in Extremely Bad Taste to be annoying.

But I digress. Despite the shortness of my present list it took me all afternoon. I have invested in technology – a little cutter thing which looks like a bristleless toothbrush and some expensive sort-of-circles-of-Sellotape which I thought would be easier than wresting with a roll.

When the cutter works, it works well – I could cut almost straight lines quite quickly. But it was temperamental about the sort of paper it liked and when it didn’t like the paper it sulked and tore it.

And the sticky circles were transparent, on a transparent backing, so it was difficult to tell which side was which – or even if there was one there at all. I needed both hands to persuade the circle to separate from its backing, by which time the paper had unwrapped itself and I had to start again. But it was still easier than a roll of Sellotape.

So, a couple of hours and a couple of cups of tea later, all is done – apart from the letter to my brother and SIL to go in with the goats – except that this year it is ‘care for a vulnerable child’.

I did get my priorities right though – average number of presents per adult on my list – 1. Average number of presents per 2 year old on my list – 6. Spoilt rotten? Babybel? Never.

Here is some playing with paper I feel more confident about. Square Kandinsky circles from torn paper – and circular Kandinsky circles made from the insides of envelopes. The tutor was a bit lukewarm about that one, but I still like it.