Creative Christmas Craft Fayre.

Although the temperature outside denies the coming of Christmas, this is the season of craft fairs, some are disappointing, like the one we went to a couple of weeks ago, little in the way of home spun crafts, plenty of imported stuff and only four genuine craft workers, but some of these fairs are excellent. Yesterday we went to the Christmas fair in Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim. Although no longer local to us we opted for this fair as we know several of the people who were exhibiting. Had we been looking for Christmas presents we would have been spoilt for choice,

Lovely Pottery.

everything from local pottery

Bluebell Organic farm.

to a full range of  Organic Christmas foods, this stall I'm pleased to say belonged to an old friend of ours who used to use our packing station for her Organic Eggs, she now has her own packing centre and a fully certified Organic Processing licence for her baked goods. She has an excellent web site.
www.bluebellorganicfarm.com
Our friends Bridget and Andy also had a stand,

home made cakes, jams and preserves plus Andy's glass paintings, Andy and I seem to be in competition for finding nice pieces of glass ware in the local charity shops, I think maybe Andy has the advantage as Bridget helps out in one of them!  Bridget also has a lovely blog. It can be found here.
www.fromacountrycottage.wordpress.com
Next to Bridget was June and Thomas from;
www.celticmooncraft.com

June paints lovely wooden plaques with Celtic designs, Thomas makes lovely glass pendants, I couldn't resist buying one, my Xmas present to me.
In all there were forty four stands with a further ten people who would have liked a place but it had already been booked to capacity.
It was a most enjoyable afternoon, there was a real energy there, this is an energy we always feel when we visit this area.
We were also able to make arrangements to pick up our wholefood order this Thursday, people we already knew from the farmers market but had not realised that this was who our order had been placed through. They also sell lovely honey so we treated ourselves as we are now on our last pot of Honey from Galicia.

Very interesting  woodworking.

We got talking to a very interesting carpenter, who it turns out gets his wood from Danny Smith, a big bear of a man from Florence Court in Co. Fermanagh, it was Danny who supplied us with all our wood years ago when we built our straw bale house. We have been promising ourselves a trip to see him, this week we will as Simon has several ideas for wood craft and we can think of no better person to give us what we need.

Poppies in Dec!

Winter is a long time coming, I just hope that when it does come it doesn't stay too long. There are already buds on the Sycamore trees. Poppies

and Borage

and borage are still blooming,

It's not spring yet, we have to have winter.

a friend has Muscari out in bloom, all very strange.
Work continues with tree planting, one day we will have finished, already it is time to plan and order next years seeds, where did this year go?

Inspired by Clarice Cliff.

Our outside light being revamped.

Something to store our Spaghetti in.

I am continuing with my glass painting, I think this might be habit forming,

as well as baking to keep Simons love of sticky buns fulfilled.
 We always seem to be busy.
The Jerusalem Artichokes have done very well this year with an average weight of 4oz each, they are a very versatile veg,

last week we did them as chips to go with cold ham, delicious, they were light and fluffy. They are also great in stir fries and give a nutty flavour to the dish, also roasting them or adding to stews, I'm glad we have such a good crop, they are best left in the ground until you need them as they do go soft very quickly so don't store well.

We are still getting the most beautiful sunsets, always nice to see especially if they are predicting more dry weather.