Caught up in end of term Christmas maddness as usual. There was a visit from the mother-in-law on Sunday, where we went to the Christmas fair at Ham House, which was nice, last year I spent three cold weekends prior to Christmas, selling books there and I am quite relieved I’m not doing it this year, although I do miss the weak as ribena mulled wine and the gorgeous cupcakes. So, instead of being stuck in a tent, I actually got a chance to do the Christmas activities in the house’s basement, where they had story telling, craft and the most amazing balloon woman.
Monday was nursery dinner night, a significantly quieter affair than nights out with the mums’ from Girl Lacer’s class but still, it was nice to go out.
Tuesday was shopping with the proceeds from the teachers’ collection and the culled early money from the kids’ Christmas presents. So, I went shopping, after I had dropped Boy Lacer off at nursery (where he’d managed, with me holding onto the handle, to scoot most of the way to nursery, which was pretty amazing, as he doesn’t particularly have the coordination to have one foot stationary on the scooter board whilst moving the other foot to push himself along), anyway I went shopping with significantly more cash on me than I normally have on me and specially considering a good proportion of the money wasn’t actually mine, I was so paranoid I’d be a clutz and loose it. Anyway I managed to stay clutz free and brought with the kids’ money a wii (yes I succumbed, but in justification this was with money from the grandma and great grandma and will be a joint present between the two of them, we were also risking serious disbelief in Santa if neither a wii or a DS* turned up under the tree on Christmas day) and with the teachers collection money gift vouchers and as extras, because I had a little money left over, a pot plant each and because I still had money left over, a small bar of posh chocolate each to. I always like giving something more than ‘just’ gift vouchers, although giving gift vouchers is always good, specially when they’re for John Lewis or maybe that’s me projecting my fabric-holic tendencies, but you can’t beat pretty flowers and chocolate at the same time. Basically I’m a frustrated wannabe hamper designer, about the only real perk of being a class rep is that you get to occasionally go shopping! Of course though the frustrated wannabe hamper designer wanted something to put them all into and as, as Mr. Lacer would put it, I have excess fabric at home, I decided to make little tote bags to show off the flowers and hold the vouchers and chocolate at the same time. So I made these last night and today (the one on the far right is for a teacher who doesn’t celebrate Christmas, so whereas I opted for Christmas-y fabric for the other three teachers, I opted for something totally different for the fourth).
Each bag is made of approximately one fat quarter of fabric and I’ve protected the bags from the flowers by keeping the flowers in the plastic bags they came in, just trimming off the tops of the bags, so they’re not sticking over the top of the totes.
So, those were presented today and the teachers seemed genuinely pleased, which was nice. As I was finishing the bags off today, it had started snowing. Boy Lacer was so sweet when I opened the front door when we were about to go to nursery, as he saw the snow tumbling down, he had just but one word, “Wow!”. So, even though I have very few free afternoons left before the holidays start and still one more Christmas present to make (which is for Boy Lacer, so I can’t do it whilst the kids are around), I just had to make use of my free time and go for a walk in the park instead, as the park is always so pretty in the snow, but in an attempt to make it a ‘useful’ excursion, the trip was sort of an ultra long way round to the supermarket. I’ve stuck some photos up from the trip on my photo blog but I’ll stick them here to.
Dewed spider webs are always pretty, but I’ve rarely seen one frosted with snow instead. This one was found on the back of a street sign, just outside the entrance to the park. It’s an old street sign, judging from the font on the other side, a left over from the 60s or 70s, which looks incredibly, pleasingly retro and obviously from it’s age, it’s also pretty worn on the back to and I think the rust spots and the reversed indentation of the letters of the sign are almost as interesting as the spiders web. I presume letters on street signs these days are painted on?
A post box in a pillar to the side of the gate into the park, the VR (the V for Victoria) on the top of the post box gives an idea to how old the pillar is, so used to seeing post boxes with ER instead.
This is where I wish I had a camera with a decent zoom, as in the centre of the shot is some deer, which of course seem a lot closer when you’re standing on the path beside them, but I like the whole effect of the snow dusted trees framing them.
*We have spent a lot of time convincing Girl Lacer that Santa would think it greedy to want both a DS and a wii.
