Merry Christmas

Christmas morning after church
and before the great present opening
ceremony had begun.
At one point there were carrier bags
lined up in the hall waiting to be unloaded
under the tree.
Cath Kidston goodies and craft books
were amongst my goodies as well as a
beautiful vintage teaset.

Secrets

The wrapping continues and the present pile
under the tree is growing fast!

Stockings

In the previous photo you can just see the tops
of the Christmas stockings hanging in the fireplace
ready for Santa to fill.

Success!

This year the bulbs have grown and are actually
flowering in time for Christmas!

Snow day

With only a week till Christmas we
also have snow!

Christmas Bunting

Christmas is coming

The tree is up, the decorations are
up and the house is almost ready for
Christmas. Still lots of wrapping and
baking to do though!

The white stars came from the Pearl

Bazaar in New York bought on our

trip last May.

Handmade Christmas

As Christmas gets closer the pace
of crafting hots up! As gifts in the
making most of it cannot be posted
but today I made these little sparkly
wreaths to hang on the tree due to
be installed this weekend.

Christmas Countdown

This weekend saw the countdown
to Christmas move up a gear as the
first presents of the season (both
handmade) were wrapped and
dispatched.
On the one hand I seem to have
been planning Christmas for a long
time already on the other hand it's
approaching fast and the to do list
is still much longer than the finished
list!

Festive drinks

Our regular Starbucks order in Boston -
Vanilla Latte for my daughter K and
Passion Tea (sadly not available at UK
Starbucks) for me. The red & white drinks
were a good match for the seasonally
festive cups current in Starbucks at the
moment.

Big Boston Warm Up

Big Boston Warm Up

Have just returned from a few days in Boston
where it gets very cold in winter.
There is a citywide initiative to give coats to
homeless people going on. For every ten
homeless people who are given a coat one of these
figures joins the crowd outside the Prudential
Centre and there were hundreds of figures lined
up - what a great idea!

Grand Canyon 2

Grand Canyon

At the last minute we sneaked in a
trip to the Grand Canyon. It wasn't
on our schedule originally as we have
been twice before but being this near
it was impossible to miss.
Although we have been before and
can even lay claim to being among
the 5% of visitors who have actually
hiked below the rim of the canyon,
the sheer size and majesty still took
my breath away.

Petrified Forest

Back in the USA later this week so
I had better speed up with the story
of the last trip!
From New Mexico we headed back
west for our flight home but not before
visiting the Petrified Forest National Park
where trees have turned from wood to
amazing coloured rock over a period
of hundreds of years.

Dutch Apple Cake

Also made Dutch Apple Cake today - still
using apples from the garden which we
picked and stored in September.
Very yummy & fit the Autumnal theme of
the day quite well I thought!

Autumn colours 3

Autumn colours 2

Autumn colours UK style

Today was my day off, no appointments
and the sun was shining so went in
search of some local Autumn colours.

Autumn colours New Mexico style

Next stop on our trip was Santa Fe,
New Mexico which was like a slice of
Spain in the middle of the USA.
being back in the city after a couple
of weeks hiking the desert and taking
steam trains into the mountains it was
time for some shopping and some art,
namely the Georgia O'Keefe gallery
which conveniently had free entry on
the day we arrived and was gorgeous.
As well as admiring the paintings we
were able to watch short films narrated
by Georgia O'Keefe describing why she
came to settle in New Mexico and how it
influenced her art.

View from seat 57

Durango to Silverton

This is the steam train we caught from Durango
to Silverton - 3 and a half hours each way so
just as well that the scenery was breath-taking
pretty much all the way.

Cutting the cake - 25 years on

Cake

Silver wedding

Back home I've been celebrating the Silver
Wedding of my brother and his wife with cards,
a party for family and friends and of course
cake.