CRAFTY STORAGE

So I was sorting out my cross stitch floss today and considering buying some of those stitchbows that you slip the floss around and hang up.

Well, being thrifty and not wanting to wait ages for them to arrive from e-Bay. I know patience is a virtue but I wasn't blessed with many virtues and patience has never been my strong point. This in mind I was suddenly struck by a radical idea after finding a huge box of jumbo paper clips.

After a few moments of organizing I ended up with a wonderful way of storing my floss so that it was handy and easy to use. All I need now is a wire strung between two posts and I can hang them up in order all neat and tidy. The little plastic labels even fitted snugly on the smaller part of the paper clip so I can easily see the information and have thus also done away with the need to buy stickers to label the stitchbows.

It's a much better system than my previous idea of stuffing them all into an old Quality Street tin and having to fish out the floss I needed which by some old arcane universal law was almost always at the bottom.

So there we have it, 5 minutes, some ingenuity and some jumbo paper clips that had been stuffed in a box and I have at least some small part of my craft stash neatly stored.

Now I just need to decide if I want to hang them by colour order or by DMC's appointed numbers... hmmm...

WHERE DOES ALL THE TIME GO?

Well, so far we're loving living down here by the sea, it's so wonderfully peaceful and relaxing and the people are just great, so friendly and warm.

As for health well, my mental health has improved and I've already lost weight and feel much more calmer and settled, I never really felt like that in London as it was too busy and noisy. P's Psoriasis is clearing up as the stress is melting away and his lungs are almost back up to full strength after being about a quarter of what they should be back in Summer last year. We are also feeling much more clear minded about things and that allows inspiration to invade and I have not stopped creating new things and planning future projects which will probably take me until this time next year to finish!!

WE'RE BACK AND WE'RE IN CORNWALL!

Well we're finally here in Cornwall and it is absolutely beautiful, the people are friendly and the weather... well... it's being weather... all kinds of weather!

The move wasn't without hitch, first of all our removals company tried to rip us off. After turning up at 7pm in the evening after being told they would be at our flat at 1pm they loaded half our stuff onto a van and decided that it was overloaded... it wasn't. Anyway, being 10pm by this time and very unhappy they demanded full payment asked for the keys and told us they would have to fetch another van and it would cost more money. We came to an uneasy arrangement with them and with a dreadful feeling in the pit of our stomachs we set off down to Somerset to stay with P's parents overnight and we had to be in Cornwall at 12 noon the next day to pick up the keys. It was a 5 hour drive in the ice, snow and freezing fog which could have been avoided if they removals firm ironically named Move Me Easy turned up at the time they we supposed to. They had already broken something while taking things out to the van, we heard it smash inside one of the boxes so we were less than happy already.

LEARNING TO CROCHET

I taught myself to knit last year when  friend of mine and his partner were expecting a baby and I wanted to send them something nice. I also wanted to make it myself and after a great deal of thought decided on some knitted beanie hats for when their little one was slightly older. Everyone gives expectant parents tiny baby things and pretty soon they grow out of them so I made the hats for around 6 months - 1 year old.

I picked up the needles and got started having never knitted before and after much cursing and being extremely annoyed I slowly got the hang of it and made several little hats. I enjoyed that greatly and have had a go at knitting a few other things since but I also wanted to learn to crochet.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Hope you're all having a wonderful day or have had a wonderful Yule!

Here at Gaia Cottage, todays menu consists of slow roasted Organic Brisket, Roast Potatoes and Parsnips, Shredded Cabbage and Carrots followed by Hughs Pear and Almond Pudding Cake. Unusual Christmas fare granted but where is the law stating we have to eat turkey every year?

Brunch was a wonderful mixture of Toasted Waffles, Crushed (slighty sweetened) Organic Raspberries and a spot of cream washed down with some Bucks Fizz.

So it's time to break out the Christmas films here and Miracle of 34th Street is the first in the machine as we watched Patrick Stewarts version of A Christmas Carol yesterday. I adore that film in it's many re-makings and have watched the afore mentioned film every Christmas for the last few years! It has become somewhat of a Chrismtas ritual to sit down and watch it, I almost know the script by now but it never seems to lose it's magic for me.

Unfortunately all the snow has gone here in London so it's not quite the white Christmas we thought it was going to be but we're enjoying it all the same as it's our last Christmas in London as we are fast approaching the 8th January where we move into our new cottage in Cornwall!

All that's left is to raise my glass to you all, thankyou for reading my blog this year and I promise it will get better next year and wish you a Happy Christmas and a safe and prosperous 2010.

HARD PEARS!

No, not a greengrocers insult but the perfect ingredient for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls Pear and Almond Pudding Cake... possibly the most heavenly of food I or everyone who had a piece of the one I baked had ever tasted!

So, move over Lemon Coconut Cake, I have a new love in my life and it doesn't contain lemon nor coconut infact it contains almonds, wholemeal self raising flour and hard pears which are sautéed in a spot of butter and sugar until softened... but lets get to the recipe shall we?

WELL GOSH...

Where has the month since I last posted gone?

Well, for us it has been a crazy frenzy of packing as we have finally gotten the thumbs up for our cottage in Cornwall. It's a beautiful two bedroomed, stone built cottage circa 1780's in a teeny, tiny place just outside of St Just. To say we are excited would be the understatement of the millennium and so on the 8th January we will be spending our first night in our new home.

We've been tentatively scoping out all the organic butchers and the farmers markets and it looks like we're in luck, there happens to be an organic butchers around 10 minutes away in one direction and our local farmers market is about 10 minutes the other way from us. Of course being so far out of the way brings it's own unique problems but we can fill in the gaps online but that said, it is going to take a bit of getting used to. No more nipping down to Seewoo for Chinese ingredients or Dadoos for Indian ingredients so it's going to take some planning to keep our stocks of spices and things like Dhals up.

That aside, we have been doing some more cooking despite having to rummage through boxes we'd packed because 'hey, when are we going to get time to bake a cake before we leave?'. Oh boy were those famous last words!