Bauble paintings

One of my bauble paintings that I did a few years ago. I did quite a few of them and they were only two inches by three. I was trying to paint old fashioned glass baubles. You don’t get them much these days. Sometimes they had a curved hollow in them with a reflective surface so they glittered in the light of fairy lights. It was a memory from forty or fifty years ago. Old fashioned and nice…..

Acrylic on canvas, with ribbon on the back so they can be hung on a Christmas tree.

2014 Angel

Before I got a drawing tablet for my computer I used to draw with a mouse. This drawing was put on Facebook in 2014, but I’m sure I had a wacom tablet by then. I actually think it’s around ten years older and that I saved this image on one of the numerous times my hard drive went down. The picture must have been drawn on a basic program, but I can’t remember which. I know it’s a mouse drawing because of the wobbly lines…… I still like it…

Tree or decorations

Since we haven’t got a tree this Christmas I haven’t put any baubles or decorations up. But that didn’t stop me getting an old box of them out to draw. The #bandofsketchers prompt for Christmas Eve…. Now I’m having a caramel chocolate and a glass of port while watching ‘the day after tomorrow’ I guess they put it on because its full of snow…..

Presents

I’ve got a few local presents to deliver, but the ones to family who live far away are going to have to wait. My concern is that so much stuff is being posted that without special delivery things may go astray. I sent a card to a friend in Yorkshire a week ago with a little gift, he still hasn’t got it? It’s annoying because I can’t send him another one.

Life is changing. It looks like the tier we are in, in our part of the country, is likely to increase. We are having an announcement this afternoon. This is now getting frustrating. We could have been in lockdown for longer, but the government wants to be matey, friendly, lenient. So mote people have died. Around 68000 so far in the UK.

Not the merriest of Christmas’s

X

Getting ready?

Thinking about Christmas. Or any other festival. I would usually be getting ready to travel to see my relatives on Christmas day, or for them to come to us. Only a small group of us, between three and four depending if there is another guest. Then Christmas lunch would be turkey with sausage meat and stuffing, roast potatoes and parsnips, peas and sprouts. Plus gravy. Not interested in bread sauce or cranberries. Our lunch then over we open presents and chat, watch some TV. Maybe go for a walk. In the evening the meal is a salad with some cold meat. I guess I should apologise for this. I know vegetarians and vegans and I do feel guilty. It’s our family tradition, but perhaps it’s time to change.

As the Christmas celebration arrives I’m beginning to wonder if it’s worth tidying up and preparing lots of food. There are only two of us this year. Life changes and you have to go with it….funny how describing it for us is all about food and not the religious reason. How strange. I didn’t mention presents either. I’ve got too much stuff. I don’t think I need more!

Ooo! Chocolates

They arrived today, from Leek, in the Staffordshire moorlands, in a big box. Bang, bang, bang on the front door this morning. I dashed downstairs and opened the door. The postman handed me a box marked fragile. What could it be? The writing on the address was very similar to that of a friend, so I assumed it was something from him. But no, there were six Chocolate boxes that I’d ordered for Christmas presents. They are handmade and in beautiful boxes tied up with ribbons. They will now be posted on to family. I might save a small box for us. X

Belgian chocolates

Oh no! Hubby bought chocolates for Christmas, a big box…. But then we decided to open them. I’ve had five and feel really guilty and a bit ill. Hubby’s eaten about ten! We should not do this. It’s not healthy. But I couldn’t resist the sweet and smooth flavours of them. I’m going to put them in the back of a cupboard so they can be enjoyed next week with our coffee.

When I was a child there used to be adverts of a man scaling a wall in the dark, climbing through a window and leaving a box of chocolates with a card… Not sure but I think it had the man’s silhouette on it? The tag line was ‘and all because the lady loves milk tray’. Chocolates were romantic in those days, not the cause of diabetes!

Cats and trees

When you have cats sometimes you can’t have Christmas trees. Baubles and tinsel are just too tempting. Cats who climb will be up to the top of the tree in seconds. There is also the danger of them chewing on the tree lights wire. Also you don’t know if they are going to chomp on some of the traditional toys, like tiny Teddy bears, that might have been handed down from generation to generation. Granny’s baby jesus or the angel with real feathers can be casualties! I’ve seen a few videos of anti cat tactics, and the one of hanging the tree from the ceiling looks pretty good. One solution I once did was to cut out the shape of a Christmas tree and container and stick it to a wall, then sticking real baubles and ones you have drawn onto it. Make sure any baubles are stuck on well and are anti shatter. Other ideas include a bauble free tree… But it might still get climbed!

🌰 Chesnuts

Memory from seven years ago on Facebook. Hubby decided to bake some Chestnuts- but they were not cooked so he put them back in the oven- 10 minutes later- BANG! One had exploded, he was shouting ow- so I came down to find him taking the roasting dish out of the oven- and using my jumper as an oven glove, he proceeded to try and break them open first with the garlic press, then with the nutcrackers- the chestnut did not pop- it exploded all over the work surface, I grabbed some kitchen towel and we used that to wrap the superheated chestnuts to break them open….

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

I know what Gold is, a precious metal but I had to look up Frankincense and Myrrh were. According to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov :

Frankincense and myrrh are two olive plants from different species and genera. Frankincense is a hard, gelatinous resin exuded from the trunk incisions of the frankincense tree, Boswellia carterii Birdw. or other species in the genus Boswellia of the family Burseraceae, mainly from Somalia, Ethiopia, and India
Myrrh is an oily, gelatinous substance exuded from the bark of Commiphora myrrha Engl. or various other species of Commiphora, and can be classified as natural myrrh or colloid myrrh. Myrrh exists mainly in tropical and subtropical areas, such as Somalia, Ethiopia, and the southern Arabian Peninsula
Taken from:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov â€º articles ›
So now you know!