New Year Delight

Last weekend (and yes, I know its almost this weekend!) Mr C and I had Sunday lunch and spent the entire afternoon and most of the evening with our good friends, Ron and Betty.  It is something of a tradition as we do this every January.  Its in lieu of a Christmas Dinner as Mr C and I are usually at another set of friends on the day itself. We also exchange Christmas gifts, whether we have seen each other over the festive period or not.  This started at the same time as Betty and I decided (some years ago) we would endeavour to make each others gifts and spend no more than five pounds on materials.  As the first Christmas deadline loomed it was evident that the gifts would not be ready in time, and so we came to the decision to exchange them in January, thus giving us both a little extra time.  It works very well as we get to extend the festivities and there's not that feeling of emptiness that is usual after the decorations are taken down.  Betty's Birthday is in late January and mine is late February, so it works rather well and keeps us with something to look forward to until Spring arrives, when all is well with the world again (can you tell I'm not that keen on Winter?).

I always get interesting gifts from Betty and this year was no exception; in fact I think she has excelled herself with these as they are quite simply beautiful

Gorgeous!

She bought a cheap pair of plymsols and decorated them with fabric paints.  She had previously decorated a pair for herself last summer to take on holiday and I had said how lovely they were then and that I must decorate a pair myself.  Well of course, I never got around to it last year and now I don't need to! Its almost a shame to wear them, but wear them I shall and enjoy every minute of walking in them.  I don't know if I will be able to wash them but the dust and dry dirt (ever hopeful!) of Summer should brush of.  If I only get one Summer out of them, it will be a Summer of blissful memories about where those shoes carried me.

New Year, New Beginnings

Wishing you all a Happy New Year.

Firstly, a big thank you to those who have stopped by since I began this blog back in July 2010.  I can't believe how quickly people have found me and seem to be regularly stopping by from all around the world.  I actually started this blog for family and friends only, the reason being that it was easier than emailing large amounts of photos.  I found that the on-line photo albums didn't have much space for text and I wanted to describe what I had been doing, and so a blog was born!  I'm only now getting the hang of the various things that one can do with the layout and style and so on, so this year my main ambition is to fully understand how to blog and to use all the gadgets available (well, not ALL of them, you understand, but the ones I like the look of!). 

The last two weeks before Christmas was spent in bed with the Flu.  I could hardly get myself to the bathroom let alone blog, so I missed all opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas.  I am now almost recovered; I feel well in myself but still have very low energy levels.  Once I am back to normal I intend to do more crafting, take more photos and make my blog more interesting for my readers.  I don't usually make Resolutions, especially in January, preferring to go with the flow of nature seeing Spring as the start of the year.  I use January to reflect on what I have achieved so far and what I must do during the coming year and then in March I try to put into practice the decisions I have made. Ha, ha!

Well, I won't bore you any more today. TTFN, Debs. xx