Highlandhearts

Look who came to the village today Father Christmas had his elves and some of his reindeer too. After they had paraded up the road Santa got out of his sleigh and went inside to his grotto to wait for all the children to visit him.  The reindeer were allowed to rest and have a good feed so I had chance to get some photos of them. Can you see his antler growing?  He was so cute. It was lovely to see them today and this post is for my Grandchildren :-) Santa will be on his way to see you guys soon! Terri X

I am feeling quite excited as my BF and I have been asked to have a stall at a local village craft fair! One of the organisers saw our bags and cushions we had made and displayed in my friends B&B and suggested we do it. I was panicking at first that we do not have enough stock to sell but I've been lucky enough to have been given various sizes of drawstring bags that we have decorated as gift bags.  I think these will help fill the gap and because they were gifted to me, it means we can sell them cheaply. A bit of applique and hand sewing going on I decided that I would do a few Christmas ones but I think it's better to do various ones which can be used for any occasion. I am going to do a few more with vintage materials and trimmings.  I have also made another drawstring bag I have a few more Scotty dog brooches to finish off,  six aprons have been embroidered with Baking Days on the fronts and we have six golf towels to embroider.  We also ...

Here's my lovely Alex sitting on the blanket I have just finished. I laid it out on my bed to try and take a few decent photos of it and he was on it in a flash!   I have been crocheting along with lots of others in the Spice of Life group set up by Sandra over at Cherry Heart blog and I have been learning lots of new stitches as i go. This is going to be a Christmas pressie for my sis-in-law, I'm sure she won't mind a few cat hairs on it! I love the colourfulness of this blanket. I used lots of dk wool from my stash for this project and as I still have more leftover, I have started another blanket, a bit smaller than this one, just for me! It's going to be a perfect lap blanket size. I picked this book from the village library this week  Just loving the cushion on the leather chair!  It has some lovely projects inside like this easy stool cover I just need to find a stool to make this! Then look at this hat and collar Isn't it lovely. ...

Difficult to get rid of a car full of branches! I told you in my last post that we had cut the Apple trees and the car was loaded, not just with sacks full but big branches loose, ready to drop off at the tip on the way to our dentist appointment. Our local one was closed so we headed to one 10 miles further on.  When we got there a tree had blown down and blocked the road.  OH climbed over it to go to the tips office to check whether the chap in charge knew, he had no idea.  I waited in the car and took this photo as I waited for him of the rainbow forming. As we couldn't get rid of our load we had no choice but to take it with us and thought that we would have time to find the tip where we were going.  No such luck!  OH stopped at a tyre company to ask where their local tip was and we followed directions only to find that the road was closed completely due to roadworks!  We ended up parked in a Tesco's car park and had to leg it to our appointment. I ...

We had strong winds last night and were awake for hours as it rattled round the house. I finally dropped off again about 4am and didn't wake till 8am. I didn't have to work today so thought it would be nice to have a leisurely day. It started off well.  Occasionally my boys do the National Lottery scratchcards so I gathered their winning ones together and cashed them in and we had 16 pounds so we all went to the local cafe for a late breakfast this morning.   When we got back we decided to prune the two Apple trees in the garden.  These are quite old trees and we had blossoms early in the year but they got hit badly in the frosts so we never got any apples. A local lady whose aunt and uncle originally planted them said they used to bear lovely cooking apples and she was thrilled to see us pruning them today.  It was quite hard work, OH rested the ladder against the trees and i tried to guide him to the branches i wanted lopping off.  My job was picking up all t...

 Shepherds Pie Such a comforting dinner when everyone is tired and hungry after a days work.  I personally like baked beans on the side with mine but OH eats it on its own.  It does have some veg in it and a sprinkle of cheese on top. I have condensed my cookbooks and these on the shelf in the photo, are the ones I like to browse through. I have 4 Jamie Oliver's, a dairy one that is years old now, a couple of Hugh's, a slimming world family recipes, Hummingbird bakery and A Girl called Jack.  I have asked for her new book as a Christmas pressie.  I keep any recipes I cut out of magazines in a pink folder. We don't often have puddings but we do like to have a cup of tea afterwards with something, usually of the chocolate or biscuit variety.  I made a lovely chocolate cake this week as I had a friend coming round for coffee and a catch up.  I forgot to take a photo of it as it didn't last long enough! Another batch of naan breads made ready to fr...

We've had a couple of frosty mornings and the local weather forcast is saying that this years winter will be colder and more seasonal weather.  It's true that the last couple of years we have had long damp winters so I guess we are due a cold, snowy one. Now that we live on the outskirts of the village I am not so worried about stocking up food as we would be able to walk to the local shops if necessary.  I will miss my little stove that we had in the cottage as during the power cuts i got pretty good at cooking one pot meals on the top of it.   We now have a lovely multi fuel stove with a back boiler and radiators and it gives us lots of hot water too. We ordered a metric tonne bag of dried seasoned wood, sourced from a local forest.  This is to supplement the wood we have collected ourselves.  Then we had a delivery of another 3 bags of coal and got the coal man to tip it into the bunker with the couple of bags we had already.  I am not sure ...