This Week - W/E 17th December 2022 - Part One

This week, I was looking forward to spending any free time I had, getting ready for Christmas. 

We started the process on Sunday, when we had a bit of a move around of our reception rooms. We like to  move our large sofa and the TV into the back room in the winter, as the wood burner is in this room, and especially this year with the cost of electricity, it made complete sense to huddle around the wood burner and use up the wood from replacing the decking earlier in the year. We're already half way through it.

Once this job was done and the decorations were all put up we were more or less Christmas ready here, which felt good. It was too frosty to work in the garden and get the garden lights up today, so they will have to wait for another slightly warmer day.

I did venture into the sewing room on Sunday too, and made a new table runner using some Christmas fabric I had in my stash. It was to use on a blanket box in the living room. It's not a perfect make, as I ran it up quickly, but it will be fine just to bring out at Christmas. Here's a couple of photos:

It's a pretty fabric with a fir bough and berries print. I used a plain dark green as backing, which I bought in an eclectic batch of fabric from eBay a couple of weeks ago, so it was good to put some of it to use. I'd like to make another table runner for the kitchen table this year, using a different fabric from my stash, preferably something darker that won't show food spills, which are virtually inevitable on the kitchen table. I'll post a picture when I've made it.

I also did a bit of Xmas shopping online for OH, but we still need to go out Xmas shopping one night for him to try on some clothes. Hopefully, we'll do this en famille, when LB comes home from University this week. I can't wait to have her home. I just need to put some Xmas bedding on her bed to welcome her home. 

The remainder of Sunday was spent chilling, doing some patchwork, watching TV and eating from the freezer to make more room for the Christmas food I'd bought over the past few weeks. It was jam packed and difficult to get into. I also got out a few of the Xmas nibbles I'd bought, so Christmas has now officially started in our house.

Sunday night, it snowed here and there was a 3" layer over everything. It looked stunningly beautiful, but I went to bed, not relishing the drive to work the next day. Here's a picture of the back garden on Monday morning:

I think I was feeling a bit overwhelmed last week, with so little time and so much to do. I'm hoping that this week, I'll feel a little better and be able to get on top of the present wrapping and then I can enjoy the week before Christmas without too much stress, especially as I expect work to get busier and busier over the next few weeks.

On Monday morning, I made sure to get up early, as I had quite a few things to do before work and I had to clear the car of snow and get it running before heading off 2 hours early, to allow plenty of time to get there on time. I put on my thermals and wellies, walked the dog in the snow, posted off the remainder of our Christmas cards and hopefully the last two online parcels, although they won't be collected until tomorrow, because of the postal strike, gathered together the grocery shopping list and bags, in the hope of having time to do the weekly shop before work and made a packed lunch to eat when I got there.

I was due at work for 1pm and by 11am the main roads that I take to work were pretty clear and thawed out.  Some of the side roads were a bit more precarious, but it just meant taking it very slowly. I had plenty of time to do the grocery shopping, and a few extras found their way in, such as a cute leopard print fleece cardigan for me to wear around the house and a really cosy faux fur blanket and cushion for LB's room, plus a new velvet lampshade. If I can't splash out on welcoming her home, when can I. I hope she likes them.

Work was busy and passed quite quickly. I stayed an extra hour as they were short staffed, but didn't want to stay any later as the roads start to ice up again and I wanted to get home. I still had to pick up the fridge/freezer bits of shopping, before I could head home too.

I was glad to get home, unpack the shopping and have a couple of hours to just chill before bed.

On Tuesday, we were up early, as we were due to drive over to South London and pick up LB and all the things she wanted to bring home for Xmas. The drive there wasn't too bad and took us less time than we expected.  I did a bit of cleaning in LB's room when I got there, sorry, the Mum in me couldn't resist and I changed her bedding, so that she had clean bedding to come back to, then we set off for home.

As a rare treat, OH bought us lunch at McDonalds, which we ate on the go, and we got back around 2.30- 3pm. LB liked her cosy bedroom and subsequently got straight into bed and slept for the rest of the afternoon, bless her.  It is lovely to have her home again.

I started on some of the washing that she'd brought home with her, walked the dog and then I decided to wrap up all of her presents, so she couldn't peek at them. I decided that I would take one thing back, as I don't think she'll use it and she gave me an idea of what I could buy her instead, that would be much more useful and practical for her. 

We brought her airfryer back with us too, as she uses it a lot and we've missed it. It might also be useful over the New Year when we have visitors. It will go back to Uni with her in January though, so we need to make the most of it whilst we have it.

The remainder of the day, I spent on a new Xmas patchwork project, of a fabric wreath, the idea for which I got from Emma Jones Vintage Sewing Box on YouTube. I am making it very slightly differently to hers, but it is so easy to make and I was able to use some of my favourite Xmas fabrics from my stash. Here's a picture of it in progress:

I'll post another picture later in the week when it is finished.

This week, I'm dividing the weekly blog into two parts, as it can get way too long, so see you in part two.