Angel Jem's City Cottage

I got all my craft stuff together and made presents for the family. (This years box; snowmen & women) For years now I have always made a little something for the closest members of the family. I made quilted cushions one year, embroidered picture frames another and very often produce painted boxes. This year everything about Christmas has run away from me, and I just don't seem to have got as far ahead as I would prefer to be, given that Advent starts on Saturday and I like (usually) to be nearly finished. Perhaps it's the nebulous quality of supply that prevents me from saying to myself "This I will do today" and doing it. I wait for the call, and am either racing out the door, or ready for disappointment. Either way, I haven't got myself up to the point that I have usually achieved at this time and hence, this year, am now beginning to panic that the event will arrive in 4 weeks time with me holding no presents and feeling a right chump. But, wait! Salvatio...

I never go to a remembrance day service. I never wear a poppy in November, although I buy several. It's not that I don't care, but rather that I care too much. From childhood I knew what the human cost of war was. My Mum and Nan told me that, often. Nanna, born in 1915, would tell me the tale of her brother Harry's safe return from World War I in 1918, of her mother dropping whatever she held and screaming, of this stranger entering the house and hugging everyone, of how when he hugged her, she screamed. Seventy years plus later, Nan could still remember the shock at his return. And so Armistice day was marked every year with poppies and prayers. The war was given a name, The Great War, the War to End All Wars, and life went on. And 21 years later, War happened again. My Nan was 24 when it started and had been married for 4 years to Grandad Leslie. (His Dad, by the way, had been injured and a POW in WWI and he had had to learn to sew left handed so as to resume his career a...

Snuggle up on the sofa to watch black and white movies. Make gingerbread men and decorate them with writing icing. Walk around on a cold and frosty morning with a scarf, hat and gloves on (but be prepared to take them off when it gets warmer) Go to a wool shop and stroke all the mohair yarns they have. Buy some tactile yarn and make a scarf. Find a new book that makes you go to bed just to read it. Rediscover an old book that does the same. Remember to put on hand cream and face cream everyday, especially if you have some really nice lavender flavour from L'occitane . Find your Christmas socks and begin to wear them under your jeans so that if anyone spots them they have to ask.... Find a Countdown to Christmas calendar and start it now (47 days to go) Just browse the decorations at the best, even if not the biggest, garden centre nearby. Keep your Christmas organiser to hand and keep ticking off things as you buy/make/acquire them. Buy red candles and put them in your candlest...