Home Sweet Home

Up here in what people seem to think is the freezing cold sheep ridden sodden wastes of Scotland Autumn is definitely here and I could not be happier. It is grey outside but that is because the sun isn't up yet. I am up and dressed having lit Mrs Jones, our trusty Rayburn, and as she fills the kitchen with heat I am sipping tea, writing this and watching the view from my window. The smell of woodsmoke in the air and the frosted carpeting on the trees and fields is the highlight of my morning. The different colours of the landscape all pop out gradually but not all at once as the sun comes up. The greyness was pierced by the golden field of cut corn although it still had a grey filter over the top then the burnished tops of the broadleaf trees behind it emerged from the grey quickly followed by the green of the sheep field on the other side of my window then the trees behind that. If I take my eyes away from the window for even a few minutes then look back there is a noticeable difference; the grey filter is lighter and a dusting of pink blusher has appeared in the sky and individual trees more golden or more red than the others start to stand out. There's snow on the hills again and is amazing how they gleam at me when the sun comes up so it is only right that I have a good look at them as I have my cup of tea. As a total aside; one indication of how much of a hoarder I am is that we have not quite finished all of the tea I bought for when we had people up for the wedding. Oops...

 In the kitchen the demi-johns of wine have been bubbling away and are looking good so I am pleased with that as I wondered if I had rushed them so my plan is to decant them into sterilised demijohns to finish fermenting then they can be bottled after Christmas; there is no rush. Yesterday I went through all of my craft supplies, tidying things up and checking that the glitter glue had not dried out, so that I could work out what things I plan to make for Christmas and enough for a stall at a local fair. This is a huge step for me and after years of people asking me to make things for them and telling me I should sell what I make this year might be the year...if I don't think about it too much and let my hyper critical thoughts rush in. Here is a preview of what I have done so far...

Is insanity is carving Santa faces into pencils...

...or is it carving cocktail sticks into crochet hooks and knitting needles?

Little tree stockings

in need of blocking!

Amidst all of this creativity we have been out in the woods. It looks as though it has snowed here already on some days as the frost on the Norwegian Spruces is so thick and it does get me thinking about Christmas, so much so that I went and ordered the turkey from the local butcher. The bees are all tucked away for Winter and they will not really come out other than on the warmest of days until next Spring now as they are all clustered in the hive. We have been cutting and splitting logs so the wood shed is heaving; it really is easier to split the logs when it is very cold. All of the flowers have frozen except for the funny little rose bush we planted by the front door when we first moved in and it seems to flower pretty much all year round. A new robin has appeared and watches  me from a few feet away whenever I am outside fetching wood but unfortunately I no longer get called by the tail-less pheasant (I am trying not to look at the Furry Assassin as I type this). JR has been as close to any fire he can be and has been working on his napping skills. The postman can even come up to the house without JR barking like a mad fiend.

A local glass artist offered a day teaching how to make stained glass hanging ornaments so all four of us went along and learned how to score, crack, tape and solder and these little beauties are what we made. Amazingly the munchkins were better at cracking the glass than us and that might be something to do with us having longer trying to not break glass! We will be hanging these up this year as our home made Christmas decorations which is good because I still haven't found time to make the wall hanging for the landing.

Well that's about it for now and I will try not to leave it so long next time.

Hugs from Haggis Land,

                                                                              Jx