The white space on this tablecloth had two issues: It was unbalanced with regard to the border, and it showed every mark!
So I decided to have a play and add some additional colour. I’m quite pleased with the result.
Like most of the country (world?), our Christmas was a much quieter affair than recent years, but we had an enjoyable day nevertheless.
Gemma had wrapped a chew for Rocco, but he was very unsure what to do with it:
An hour later, it had disappeared, so he either ate it or hid it somewhere!
After lunch, we went for a walk in the sunshine. This is Rocco waiting me to throw his stick for him:
The park looked nice in the sun:
But it didn’t stop Rocco getting muddy:
… I’ve been playing around with screening off the chaos which is our loft space, for when I need to do more formal video calls – the bench meeting this evening, for example.
If I’m to use this idea for real, I’ll have to iron the scarves!!
The top of my sewing drawers was getting cluttered, so I decided to tidy it up. Which, of course, led to sorting out one of the drawers. 
As is the way with things, this led to sorting out my eaves cupboard…
A real sense of achievement! And so to actually doing something now that my sewing space is ready for action:
Well, I haven’t made wine, but… I picked most of the grapes I could reach from the kitchen step stool. Loads still left on the vine.
So, after about an hour taking the grapes off the stalks (you can’t just squash them if you plan to make jelly), I had to go and do some other stuff, so the grapes took over the fridge.
A couple of days later, I continued… The bowl on the left is the one that started out full of grapes. And, may I say, spiders and earwigs!
So there was lots of rubbish, but a big pot of grapes, to which I added apple and lemon for a better set. Well, any set, to be honest.
That evening, the cooked mixture was left to drip.
My jelly bag was too small, so that’s part of Phil’s old brewing kit.
After cooking again with an equivalent amount of sugar: many pots of grape jelly. That should last until the next harvest!
Oh, and there are still a few in the fridge for me to eat.
This year, for the first time in several, I have had time to gather some herbs for the freezer.
Here’s a big bowl of herbs ready for sorting.
And here they are sorted. The lids are from pots I have used in previous years, although not recently.
And here are the stalks, the leaves which weren’t good enough, and a few dandelions.
The herb bed has been particularly good this year, and I have really enjoyed using it. I even took a bag of herbs with me on holiday, which livened up what is usually very plain cooking when we’re away.
I knew the dining room cupboards needed sorting out. Some of them contain overflow from the kitchen, and buying a new wok triggered a sort out of some of the kitchen cupboards. Furthermore, we looked at old photos of the dining room and realised it had not always been this cluttered!
So I emptied the cupboards on to the table…
Reminds me of the photo we took of our wedding presents!
Some of it went to the bin, some to be re-homed, some to the loft, and the result…
Of course, the fireplace is gone, the wallpaper is different, and the pile of games is “new”.
You may recognise the little dancing girl from the 1980’s photo.
This is photo of the north west corner of the office taken in 2001 – what a lot has changed since then, including the “old” monitor, a record player and lots of cassettes. But the desk is clear, which is unusual…
The corner behind the door has evolved since then, and by 2013, you can just see a rack of DVD’s, a rack of books and just a few cassettes behind the door:
The cassettes are now past history, but the number of books has increased, so after a bit of reworking, I’ve ended up with this:
Note that the main shelves on the left were rebuilt in 2017!
Our project this weekend has been emptying, cleaning and refilling the larder.
This small space stores a LOT of stuff:
Many years of dirt needed to be removed:
But it looks a lot nicer now:
Our chilli plants are now producing useful fruit. These are the colourful Masquerade variety:
And these are Rawit:
