I'm not entirely sure where December has gone. I was at work for the first two weeks, in a flurry of activity leading to a deadline. My last day was the 15th - a complete luxury, which I planned for, as I only took a week off over Christmas last year and it wasn't long enough. We had some lovely weather at the start of the month. Beautiful, but very cold, and of course that was the very moment our boiler decided to conk out. All fixed now, thank goodness, and without too much inconvenience. We also had a spell of freezing rain - a bizarre type of weather, where it's so cold that the rain freezes instantly and coats whatever it comes into contact with in a layer of ice. Absolutely treacherous, and I was glad I didn't have to go any further than the chicken run. My thoughts, unsurprisingly, have been on keeping warm. I finished a couple of my thermal blinds and got them up in the kitchen. I'm delighted with them, they make the room far more cosy, and they're bright and cheerful. I bought the thermal fabric for this project, but all the other material we had lying around, bought in charity shops many years ago. We've got another two to hang in the kitchen, and two in the bedroom. While I had the sewing machine out, I made a load of present bags from a couple of festive table cloths I picked up in a charity shop recently. I love using present bags instead of wrapping paper - I made several last year, but they weren't particularly festive, and my technique has improved the more I've made. I finished my Christmas shopping on 23rd December, which might not sound early, but is an improvement on most years, when I usually end up buying the final things between Christmas and new year, or even after that. Not this year though. I'm really pleased I had time for some pre-Christmas cafe trips and general hanging around, because since then, things have gone rather awry. Peter has been ill since Christmas eve, and now I'm full of cold as well.
Before I got ill though, I did manage to squeeze in a race with my sister. We've done this race before, in 2018 - it lasts from sunrise to sunset, and you just do as many laps as you can. I love the concept of keeping going for the whole of the daylight hours, in the shortest days of the year. We managed 21.5 miles, and were giddy with success, and then I somehow got locked in the car park, which resulted in an hour traipsing around the playing fields in the dark and rain with another woman who was also trapped, until we managed to squeeze our way out of a pedestrian exit. That, combined with the race itself, and a two hour drive home during which I could not get warm, combined to make me rather stiff, and unsurprisingly, I caught Peter's cold, so now I'm poorly too. Since then, we've been cooped up inside the house, spending our time in separate rooms, each with a box of tissues and our choice of mindless tv, occasionally rousing ourselves to make a cuppa or take the chickens a treat. What a way to end the year. I'm glad I took over three weeks off work, because it means I've still got nine days left before I go back, and I'm going to need that time for family visiting, doing all the little jobs I vowed to do while I was off, and generally recovering. Back soon with some reflections on the outgoing year and some plans for the new one...
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Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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