Another busy week

This first lot of Christmas cards are ready to be put together, I prefer the simple design, I'm doing them in 2 batches as the rest of my cards are slightly bigger. I did not have any gold or silver mirror card, this pinkie purple looks good, the pattern smaller star on top covers most of it. 

Daughters cake has it's marzipan layer, our cake had another drink of brandy. I hope to have daughter cake flat iced by end of month, our cake I don't add marzipan until middle of December, leaving it so late means the almonds don't sink much into the cake and I can eat some, I always cut off the marzipan and icing. 

This is a lovely sign, well made and a gift sent to hubby, just arrived in the post from his brother, it represents everything we try to avoid, the gift was 'I saw it and thought of you' which is lovely and very thoughtful, BUT hubby does not and has never owned a Hartley-Davidson motorbike, which are outside of our budget. Hubby had popped it up on the outside wall of the garage and sent photo's to his brother.

The garden on a dull morning, at least it's dry, most of the leaves from our neighbours trees and overgrown plants have fallen, just now a case of picking up Magnolia leaves as the fall, my dustbin in filling with the fallen leaves, so hopefully leaf mulch next year. Still flowers in bloom and our Acer is a lovely colour. I love the view down the garden, with the fence infront of the greenhouse gone it's a less cluttered view. 

Please don't think hubby was ungrateful for the gift, it is a beautiful sign, when he opened it 'why' was his thought, his brother is not rich, so we would rather they spend their money on themselves. A dear sadly departed friend told me many years ago a gift should be something the person wants, but something they would not buy themselves, I've always tried to stick with that, as we get older we have so much and want so little, so now I use it has to be useful or beautiful, I spend so much time thinking of the person and try and get a gift which is a joy to receive.

I have predicted I have 5 rows left on my crochet blanket, I weighed my ball of yarn, did 1 round and weighed the yarn again, 73grms and then 62grms, 11 grams per round, then end is in sight. I've not sewn in any ends on my shawl, I have been reading, the book suggested to me is brilliant.

I have been out a few days this week, our sign ladies went further away to a big garden centre at the edge of Southampton on Tuesday, loads of Christmas stuff and gifts on sell, with a lovely chat over coffee, it's always nice to go somewhere different. Wednesday I spent time with daughter and Molly, firstly we had tree decorations made using Molly handprint, I have the same ornament using a footprint from Will and George, the boys were at school and nursery, I managed to get a couple more Christmas gifts, so I'm almost finished.

Sadly both our Taunton grandsons have had positive covid test, same for their daddy (hubby's son), mummy has a bad cold but tested negative, they are not ill, just isolating at home.

Tell me when is Black Friday, not that I will purchase anything, I'm just sick of the loud adverts everywhere, it's been every day, hopefully soon it will all be over.