Christmas Ad nauseum.

Our local radio station is mainly a music station, little in the way of discussions, fine for late night listening or in the car. This year they decided that there would be no Christmas records played until the 8th of Dec. Wow, what a relief, however since the 8th of Dec it has been Xmas music ad nauseum, if I hear Chris Rea groaning  'Driving home for Christmas' once more I think I will be throwing the radio out. OK, I get it, it will be Christmas in a couple of weeks time, but the TV Christmas advertising has now gone on for nearly two months. Spotted on Facebook the other day,    Christmas is in December, not November, get over it.  No wonder people get so stressed about Christmas, if you don't have your table groaning under the weight of enough food to feed an small army you are not doing it right, if your tree is not decorated in the colours which someone has decided is this years fashion you are failing, and if you haven't bought this years top toy for the children you are defiantly a bad parent. I don't understand the haste to put up Christmas decorations at the beginning of December, Christmas Eve to Twelfth Night is certainly enough for me. This year however the decorations will have to go up a day or so early as we have friends coming for Christmas, arriving Christmas Eve. Our decorations will comprise of Holly and Ivy, collected from our hedges with a few cheerful candles, pine cones which we have collected and spray painted to add a touch of cheer. If it was left to my O.H there would be no decorations at all!  Extra mince meat has been made, the cake and puddings have been made, the cake still has to be marzipaned, we don't do icing, neither of us likes it. Gifts for friends in the UK are wrapped and packaged, ready for picking up by a courier on Tuesday, the cost of a courier is less than half of 'An Post'. Veg is in the garden and the bird is in the freezer, one of our own, I like keeping things simple, no tearing around shops buying what is not needed.

Mugs for two of our friends.

I have made pottery gifts for three of our friends,

A vase for another.

I hope they will be pleased with them.

And a fruit bowl for us.

I also made a fruit bowl for ourselves, I am now working on a set of matching soup/ fruit bowls but they wont be finished until after Christmas. So that's it, I'm ready for Christmas, now I can relax and do things I want to do.

So near and yet so far, just the black edges to do.

I had hoped to have finished the second  tapestry cushion before Christmas but unfortunately I ran out of black wool, 'The Crafters Basket' where I buy my supplies from will not have any in until the middle of this week which may or may not be enough time for me to finish the sewing. Never mind, if it's not finished it will wait, I'm not going to get stressed about it.

First of the purple sprouts.

At last the purple Brussel sprouts have decided to grow, we have our first picking today, why they should have taken so much longer to grow than the green ones is a mystery, they were planted out at the same time.
We have lots of wild birds visiting our feeders, they are eating us out of house and home. We have

Blue Tit.

blue tits, coal tits

Great Tit.

and great tits, plus goldfinch, a couple of friendly robins  wrens,  a couple of blackbirds

House Sparrow sharing space with a Blue Tit

and a whole army of house sparrows. These are birds which seem to stay around the back of the cottage, in the front we have thrushes, wagtails , hedge sparrows and several robins, but they never venture to the back and the bird feeders.