Getting cosy

Hi everyone, how are you all doing?  I hope you are all way ahead with your Christmas things, (if  you celebrate Christmas of course), and your tinsel remains untangled!!!

Yesterday we all popped out to get things like cranberries, chestnuts and decided to go to Aberaeron instead of the big supermarket...I could not face queues...I am feeling rather chilled and intend to stay that way as much as I can thank you very much!!!! We got everything we wanted including husband's cheeses and locally made oatcakes...he was very happy when he came out of the deli with his little brown paper bag...he had sampled some new cheeses, one of which he bought which was very stinky and now in it's very own box in the fridge!  The turkey and veg DH is collecting today from the farm butchers and then hopefully apart from Little Miss' birthday we can snuggle down, really get cosy and hopefully not have to venture out for days!!!

Today I intend to spend at least a couple of hours having a bit of "me" time .  I seriously have two things to finish off and well I have decided I deserve a break!!! All the bits of making I had had planned are still waiting and we need to empty my stuff out of the dining room  to get the table "back" for Christmas lunch.  The table is always done by me and our sweet girl...she loves it especially when we get the crackers out and always wants balloons.

DH always (well apart from when we worked over Christmas....oh I do not miss that) 

does Christmas lunch and begins Christmas Eve....the house smells lovely and I put my feet up,

and he will need the dining table for when things begin coming out of the oven, so between today and tomorrow I need to finish off any last minute wrapping and relocate craft items back to the craft room.

Little Man has a cold and although 10 , it's flu apparently !!! I told him to put his slippers on , his reply " you do it, I am too ill mum". That was after he had been jumping around playing his Minecraft game like a bag of mad frogs, seriously he is a terrible patient.   

oh I do do hope DH doesn't get it...two sick men in one household , I will be running for the hills to save my sanity!!

I intend (if this rain ever stops) to have a stroll through the village in the next day or two to collect some holly and foliage...this is our second Christmas here and last year I made a little centre piece for the Christmas table and would like to try to do it again.  Our village has holly (in Welsh) as part of its name so it seems rather fitting and apt to have holly somewhere in our home.  Last year I had clusters doted here and there and it did look nice though we had to be careful of the berries because of our Dexter as they are poisonous and he will eat anything!

Here he is our  beautiful boy.

I hung his stocking up

his is of course the spotty one.

Dextie can be so vocal 

and when he saw it , oh it was funny,

he grabbed it and ran off

I grabbed it back

and I wish you could of heard 

the groans, grunts and

and funny noises as

I hung it up out of his reach

(He isn't allowed upstairs )

He is so funny

I just know he knows goodies 

get put in there.

Oh we love our spotty boy

never ever had a boy like him.

This is our 5th Christmas with him , 

at night he sits watching the lights..

I'm sure sitting near the fire going ,

lights twinkling is one of his favourite things.

Yesterday those  that took part in Amy's "love made our home" Christmas card swap linked their posts and I have enjoyed receiving lovely comments from bloggers who took part and doing the same  by visiting their blogs and commenting.  This community of ours is fantastic isn't it, ? if we girls ruled the world we could sort all the woes of the world out I'm sure.  Thank you Amy..this swap has spread a lot of happiness..have a wonderful Christmas and New Year....

Well this little tree displays the handmade decorations I have received and made too this year in swaps and decorations gifted to me.  It brings lots of smiles when I see it and wow what lovely ladies I have meet this year through the blog and swaps...very happy times.

Both mice have new scarves now

Lists what lists?  I only have one little list left..yippee ....and that is to remind me what to take out of the freezer on the 23rd for my lovely husband ...... Hope your lists are getting shorter and somewhere in this busy time you find time for "you".   Take care

Run for your life!!!!!

and little Mr Mouse did!!!! He was in the trap and although camera was poised , he was an Olympic mouse!!!! He made one attempt to leap out of the crate I put the trap in to transport him , failed , a second later tried again and it must off been 15 times higher than he I kid you not !! And bingo he  was free......
this is one of my favourite lanes where we live and this is his new home...(3 miles from home so let hope he isn't a super duper sprinter too and has a hopeless sense of direction') looks like he is going to have a lot of neighbours !! I have let the traps out, just in case he did have mates!!! But this morning I am happy to report they have not been sprung.

Mouse holes everywhere!!

So he should be at home.

Thanks for all the recent comments, I so enjoy reading all  the comments.  I seem to have been a bit slow on my blog reading and commenting , but I hope to really catch up soon.  I also need to do some. Blog Housekeeping a few buttons to add...my this is a busy swap time,of year.

Well life here is never dull...I seem to always have a little adventure on the go one way or another!!!!
On the way to release mouse I had a pheasant on one of the lanes , he was walking down the middle
of the lane ,  and the lanes up to the main road except the one where I released him are single track.

He was strutting his stuff, , beautiful colours  so I admired him for a few seconds , then started
hooting  the horn ,  speeding up to him, windscreen wipers spraying screen wash !!  no he wasn't
going to budge . Then his hen joined him, obviously wanted to join in the fun .In the end much to my
daughter's delight I , in absolutely pouring rain had to chase them into the hedge. I must of looked
such a funny sight as when I got back in the car soaking wet, Little Miss was laughing so much her
eyes were full of tears , she was laughing so much she couldn"t speak!!!! I'm glad someone found it funny!!!  At the weekend the same thing happened when we were out

that time they didn't want to play

And did move

Well we had a morning together in Cardigan my sweet girl and I .   After  breakfast in our favourite coffee shop ,  we again in pouring rain , wandered about and did some shopping for some of the swaps, a couple of birthdays and some bits Little Miss fancied for her projects.  She also spotted this in a charity shop window and squealed "can I have it
mummy? It's Mr Mouse and his wife!!( under my breath I muttered something like "I hope not ", you
get my drift ha ha ha, it wasn't that polite!!!)  ! I hope Mr Mouse wasn't Mrs Mouse and has left her
offspring.  behind !!! Anyway I gave her the money and waited , watching , as she went in the shop,
asked and showed the assistant what she would like, waited, paid, put it carefully in her bag and
returned with the receipt and change.  It is so easy to preempt kids with special needs, do everything for them, and it is hard but I am standing back more and more ...setting her( especially) "free",  letting her just be her own person, make her own choices etc..do things herself , for herself, it is hard probably for both of us , but we are getting there.

Can you believe the coincidence?

I must admit I did laugh

the caption on it reads

"Caring and sharing, making happiness grow"

How apt to find it

today of all days...

It now has a little place in sweetheart's room 

she loves it!

I wonder if in years to come she will

remember "mr mouse"

And the pheasant...I hope so.

Today is a stay at home day...we have lots planned, pumpkin carving, Halloween decorating (a bit)
and some Little Miss crafting.

When I got home yesterday two magazines had arrived...I have the 2012 version, haven't seen a 2013 version, was there one? Don't know...and now have the 2014 and 2015 copies.  I can sit for hours reading these .  Loads of charts and ideas for finishing projects.

Squirrel, sheep and a bunny brass buttons.

I also got 3 new buttons (probably for Spring projects ) for when I am bored with Christmas sewing
And a pattern from Madame Chantilly, well a set of 6 patterns to be precise.  I have never sewn her charts before, they are little and I mean little and may be do able in a evening easily (says she the woman constantly with works in progress!!!!)

I did more sewing on the panel again and this is what I call "lovely, happy sewing" I know I am
smiling away as I stitch.  This is the focus of my attention I think  for now.

Well fingers crossed , a couple of mice and pheasant free days, is it only Wednesday???? The clocks are all right now, DH has to do the car though...not messing about with that with my track record this week!!!


Oh before I forget TRACY , has a Christmas cracker swap ...have a look.. More fun
hhttp://madaboutbagsuk.blogspot.co.uk/


See you all again soon. Xxxx

Bother!!!!

Day one

I got up yesterday morning at what I thought was 5.30am but you guessed it I hadn't changed my bedside clock ...so that meant when I awoke at 4.30 and couldn't get back to sleep I had in fact been awake since 3.30am and when I came downstairs and saw all the clocks showing 4.30am I was not a happy bunny, but decided I probably wouldn't fall asleep again so use the time to catch up on a few things.

Then I was in the kitchen and out of the corner of my eye saw a dor mouse scoot across the floor and dive under the washing machine.  Another bother!  I shut him in the utility room and set up a trap with a piece of kit Kat chocolate....those little critters love it, tried peanut butter before but oh so messy...kit Kat works every time...well fingers crossed it will this time too.  The trouble is pupster gets fed in there  plus the loo is on the other side , so how long he remains "contained" in anyone's guess.  Usually when we have a new resident you see signs of their occupancy but I haven't so hopefully he hasn't been here long but just in case I have put 3 humane traps down.  I keep telling DH we need a cat living here but he is having none of it...losing our two pussy cats a few years back when they were 17 upset him (big softy) but Dextie is obviously not a mouser so I suppose the fun of using traps continues.  Now if I had to kill a rat I would do it gladly but those cute little mice with black little eyes ...well I can't .....so when we catch one we taken it with us on pupster's walk and
that is usually several miles away and let them go...and I know if we had a cat any mice we had would be killed but yes I am a southern softie, hands up..I admit it, I bet Pam and Dawn my new blogging friends are rolling their eyes in disgust..ha ha ha.... But I can't despatch them and that's that and I know DH would run for the hills if I asked him too!!!! Back at our old house we never had mice until our cats died and as we backed onto woods and water there were lots of them..   So I think the
smell of cat alone is a deterant......my friend offered me the loan of her cat "fang" ..love that name !!!

But he is feral  and I mean feral!! Greets everyone with a hiss , spit and that mean sounding meow!!,  he is a "outside" cat, lives in a barn (very happily) and is a great mouser.  The trouble is pupster has never been close to a cat and I can only imagine the carnage my soft furnishings would suffer at the paws of  dear Fang!!!!!!so he would be a last option if the traps don't attract the little blighter(s). My friend said if there is one then there are usually more! "Oh joyous" was my reply..I hope not !!! In two years we have caught 3 so I suppose one every 6 months isn't that bad living in the back of beyond . The kids are forever leaving the back porch door open (in and out of the garden) so I know that's how the mice probably get in .  So anyway  , let's hope Mr Mouse has a chocolate addiction !!!!(in my experience they usually do) and doesn't have any mates or his own "open house" policy !!!!

Well I have been craft stall making not for me but for a friend to donate for a stall in aid of a worthwhile charity or two.  My new toy has been in action and has been worth it's weight in gold...in
fact my friend (in her seventies) says she is seriously tempted to buy one too.  She has dreadful
arthritis in her hands and fingers but she can still machine and has sewn all her life and made some
beautiful patchwork quilts.  She finds cutting really painful now (hence my help) and seeing speed
the quilting dies cut made her think she might be able to start sewing again.


Well by lunch time I gave in and had to have a nap and then after a hour refreshed got some cross stitching out and did that for a bit.  I also done some more sewing on my quilt panel, adding some
beads this time.   I so love this and I am determined it will be hanging up for Christmas.  It also has
matching mini panels that I am hand sewing to.  I can't decide whether to make mini cushions, big cushions of bunting with them.  Decisions .....decisions.......

then the doorbell rang and more loveliness coming through my door!! Last week we decided to rehome a Victorian looking iron single bed we had.  It was in perfect condition and was in our spare room and well being single we decided to get a double instead.  Anyway I offered it to a neighbour and she was so delighted and I insisted we didn't want anything for it.  Then this afternoon her grandson arrived with  the new Jurassic dvd for the kids and a lovely bottle of wine for us.  I was really taken a back ..... And wow I know what Little Man wants to watch later!!!!



Day two


Little update ........it's.  Tuesday morning , first thing, found one trap has been sprung, yippeeee, it is a boxed in trap, so not going to open it here in the house , feels heavy, well that's is a mouse is "heavy" but a shake and it feels occupied !!!!!

Off later to go shopping so will hopefully have the chance to "set him free" that's if he is in there.
Will let you know next time.

See you soon. ....from the southern softie xxx