December 2016

Every now and then, the mess in my office gets overwhelming.  I can’t find anything, I throw things about and stuff piles up so I can hardly get into the room.  I reached that point this morning, so had a bit of a tidy.

Classic FM is having an all-day Mozart fest so I’ve got the music playing and I’m working away. There are still lots of piles about.  That’s the way I work.  If it’s filed, I’ve forgotten it, so it has to be piled so I’ll find it again later!

While tidying I started putting away the wreckage of this terms art-work.  Pastels are back in pots, brushes have been washed and paintings put into my box of work.  I took pictures of the ones I like best and then played with them on the computer – boosting colours, adding contrast, straightening and cropping, etc.  The photos look a lot better than the originals, so I’ve included them in this post.

Now it’s time to start going through my “Arts Festival Pending” e-mail folder to get some jobs done before tomorrow’s committee meeting.

This picture is a bit warmer than my garden right now!

Short days and long nights have crept up on us again, along with some quite awful weather for a while.  Our stream kept rising – as high as it’s been for several years.  With strong winds and pouring rain I didn’t feel like going outside to do anything.

But now we’ve had high pressure for a few days.  It’s very cold, with the frost lingering in this hollow from day to day and getting thicker and thicker each night.  The pond is frozen over, but the stream is down and the sun is shining brightly.

I went out to pick up some windfall apples.  There was a carpet of them because it’s been a bumper year and because I couldn’t be bothered to go out and collect them as they fell.  Now I have two large plastic shopping bags full.  All I have to do is remove the slugs and cut them up for storage in the freezer. I reckon it will take all night, so I hope there’s something on the telly to watch while I do it!

But you know, laziness does have its rewards!  The garden is full of birds – from the little wren I had to chase out of the garage this afternoon, to the brilliant kingfisher who perches alongside the stream and then shoots off with a flash of irridescent neon blue.  (This is the best I could do before she flew off). The blackbirds, squirrels and badgers have been feasting on the apples and the birds have stripped our rowan trees of all their berries.

So here we are in December again.  21 days to the Solstice.  I can’t wait!