Saturday Morning

While my husband was recovering from the late night out with friends, Cat and I melted some crayons in the oven.

And later it was Christmas time. Ok, maybe not, but it sure felt like it. Clive got two packages with the tile samples on Friday and while Cat was helping him find the tiles in the packaging pellets another package arrived for me.

So the Little Girl switched to helping me unwrap all the wonderful things from Stagasaurus.

First we unwrapped a little wallet with jelly filled marshmallows for her. Next one was the Wunderknauel made out of Rowan little big wool. On seeing it my husband came up with a new word youreffic - terriffic for you. I unraveled it in the evening and will have to share a photo of what it contained inside a bit later. There also was a journal with beautiful cover, which Stagasaurus bought from local crafter, who sadly doesn't sell online. And last but not least I found a set of four hand-embroidered by Stagasaurus napkins. I looking forward to using them once we have a dinning table. What a fantastic swap package! It sure made me feel extremely happy.

Some crafting

I woke up today to the blue sky and found this tiny daffodils in our garden - the spring must be close

I seem to be addicted to making Chinese knot necklaces. At the end of last year I made some for my sister and mum, but didn't take any pictures. And before going to Cape Town I made two more. This one for a swap with Stagasaurus

And this one for my sister-in-law.

And I have plans to make few more for myself - they are so easy to make and don't require much space. Today I realised that the main reason I'm struggling to get anything drawing or crafting done is lack of clear space on my desk, so I moved almost everything off it. Now I just need to find time to unpack and re-organize all my craft supplies, so I don't waste time looking for them.

Back from Cape Town

We got back from Cape Town late on Monday morning and yesterday I was feeling out of sorts. From the house full of relatives, conversations, sunlight, kids running around, refreshing swims in the pool and open blue sky to the quietness of our small family, uncomfortableness of the house in the midst of renovations and grey blanket of London sky. And then out of our bedroom window I saw a huge bumblebee (shouldn’t it be hibernating now?) and it felt like a good sign of the spring to come and the reminder that the love and happiness we were gifted with while in Cape Town are still with us no matter where we are. Thank you my new family and friends for the wonderful holiday. I just wish we could spend more time together getting to know each other better.

...

With fires still raging in Victoria I don’t feel that I have anything worth saying. None of my family and, as far as I know, friends are affected. But as Assemblage says in her post “our state is relatively small and interconnected”, so I keep on praying for everyone’s wellbeing.

Here is a list of various ways to help, including donating money. PeaSoup linked to few additional ways to help and personal stories at the end of her post.

Additional snowmen

Being stuck inside the house with a toddler, who thinks that she no longer needs an afternoon nap, isn't much fun. Specially when I know that she'll be tired and grumpy by about 5pm. So yesterday we ventured outside again to build more snowmen.

And afterwards we had a good excuse to drink hot chocolate.

From cold to cold

Our exploration of the new area was slowed down by both Cat and I catching a cold and spending a whole week mostly at home with occasional short trips to the shops. And just as we got better the weather turned really cold (for London), the snow came down (London has seen the heaviest snowfall in 18 years, weather experts said.) and we are staying indoors again. We did brave outside for few minutes to play with the snow and build a tiny snowman.

Poor Clive didn't have the same option and just spent TWO and A HALF hours getting to work, since most London public transport is suspended or experiencing sever delays.