Sorry for the dearth of posts, I’ve been knitting secret Christmas things and haven’t got good enough at arty farty close up shots to show you anything without giving away what things are and also we’ve had a house full of plasterers followed by damp and black mould so I’ve been alternately too busy painting/too busy moping about the damp to feel like writing anything.

I have no idea when stir up Sunday was this year because our church doesn’t do the collect, (Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord…) but we thought it must be about time to make the Christmas cake and puddings. I usually make a couple of puddings in basins, we eat one at Christmas and the second one has variously been given away, eaten at the next big family do, eaten at Easter or once eaten the following Christmas when we found it lurking in the back of the cupboard. Last year the small people had an advent calendar thing on the computer about an Edwardian house at Christmas with animations and interesting stuff and Small asked if we could make a round pudding like they did in that house. My first reaction was, ‘No!’ thinking of the mess but they did some research with the Man in the Shed and they persuaded me to have a go. We boiled a couple of old muslins up for some Tuesdays before tying up the puddings and they are currently being boiled (for even more Tuesdays than the cloths were) as I type. The photo was taken by my small assistant at about eight o’clock this morning from a height of four feet.

The other thing I’ve been doing is knitting some bear paws for a friend who has acquired a bear hat for his birthday, he seems quite pleased with his hat and excited to have ears (despite his wife pointing out that he did already have ears) and I suggested that he needed paws to go with it. Here is the first one, I’m hoping it will look a bit better with the right sized hand in it. I have also discovered I don’t possess long enough arms to take photos of my own hands. It’s not quite finished, I need to dig out some grey fleece that I have got in a box somewhere and then I can sew on some pads but it’s not looking too bad.