It’s way too late for a Christmas post, but I thought as I only went back to work yesterday (and my brain is pretty convinced it is still on holiday) it would be ok to write a couple of highlights.  So here they are:

1)  I decided to make 90% of my gifts, and then decided to make hats for charity in the middle of that.  I made 48 hats, 3 bottles of raspberry vinegar, 3 scarves and a dragon.  I finished at lunch time on Christmas Eve.  Could someone remind me of this in about July?  October was not quite early enough to start…

crochet dragon

(I used this fantabulous pattern as a basis but changed the stitches in the body and changed the wings quite a bit)

2)  Norman Cat believes in Christmas.  I know this because he left me this gift  in the conservatory on Christmas morning:

Yes, that is an entire fresh salmon fillet.  I am now considering what disguise I can crochet for him as I assume the neighbour who has unwittingly donated sausages, gammon, fish and an entire steak is probably not best pleased that they were a dinner short on Christmas day, and may now be on the lookout for the thief…

3) I am even less cultured than I thought.  I took mum to see Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake for her Christmas present.  I’d been warned that this was a different story to the real Swan Lake but it was so VERY different.  That was when I thought to ask Mum on the way home about the real story.  It turns out, it’s not, as I’d thought:

There once was an ugly duckling
With feathers all stubby and brown
And the other birds said in so many words said
Get out of town….

You can listen to it here if you don’t know it.  To be fair, there is a swan in it!

4) Little Mummy’s look even smaller next to a giant Christmas tree:

5) Boxing Day walks are always beautiful:

6) And with some of my Christmas money I bought a slow cooker.  I think it may revolutionise my life.  Or at least my diet (which until now has been mainly toast).  It is so easy to use that even I haven’t managed to screw up a meal – you just throw everything on the pot, leave it to do its thing, and food comes out that is actually edible!  A couple of people asked for my first recipe so I’ve popped that below.  Since then I have also done meat’lls (they were supposed to be meat balls, but I didn’t like squishing them together and they fell apart quite a bit), celery and stilton soup and pork in cider.  If I carry on like this I will be the size of a house my March, but hey ho.  I’ll be the size of a house and own bay leaves and a bit of root ginger…both are a first for me :o)

Potato, Apple and Bacon hotpot (from 200 slow cooker recipes by Sara Lewis)