Can I go to bed yet?

 Thank heavens it's nearly the Solstice.  I know I am not alone in not enjoying the long dark evenings of winter which start mid-afternoon and seem endless.  Several friends who like me, live alone, have said the same thing recently - we get to about 7 p.m. and think, can we go to bed yet?!!!  Admittedly one of these folk lives very basically (my neighbour who's doing up the cottage) and doesn't have a tv and I imagine you soon get fed up reading stuff on your mobile phone . . . I can remember one of the stories in All Creatures Great and Small and there has been an evening call out to a farm up in the Dales, run by a couple of brothers and a sister.  James Herriot arrives and as he walks past the parlour window to the door, he sees by the light inside (this is 1930s so possibly pre-electricity and it is just lit by a Tilley Lamp) the three figures just SAT, not talking, no radio, nothing.   Just satisfied (one assumes) with the labours of the day having ceased. It is so hard to imagine that now when we expect more from life.  

This year's greenwood wreath.  I'm not happy with the droopy fir on the bottom and would have preferred Ivy, which was in great trailing abundance at Ynyswen but harder to find round here.  Ah well, not one of my best, but I may go for a wander down the Dingle and see if I can find some trailing ivy.

The tree is all decked out in its finery now.  I have to say, 10 days or so before Christmas is quite early enough to make the house Christmassy.  I know some people can't wait to get the decorations out and the plastic tree up  and Tam thinks I'm a spoilsport for taking it all down on New Year's Day (though she swears I do it on Boxing Day!!) but it works for me.  I don't get time to get fed up with it.

This lovely throw has turned up on a Quilting Magazine feed on Facebook and I fell in love with it. I have worked out how it "works" - the central  star is surrounded by half the same block either side. I'd love to do this and have some aqua/turquoise fat 1/4s which would be perfect to make this, and then I could hang it over the back of the oak settle in the kitchen.  

Well, it is of course the middle of the bloomin' night again.  Alfie woke me at 1 a.m. to be Let Out. As I'd gone to bed at nine, I'd had a good chunk of sleep and my brain got too busy for me to nod off again.  I lay there till 1/4 to 3 before giving up and coming downstairs. 

The embroidery I am doing (a gift for Tam) is coming on really well and I am enjoying doing it and watching Series 6 of Outlander.  It is giving me a break from the endless hexies for the blue and red quilt I was working on.

After two years of totally ignoring the Christmas tree, Pippi has this year discovered it! I was sat there sewing and she did a gallop-by, swiped one of my little x-stitch decorations which flew in the air, and put that on repeat with a couple more low on the tree!  Apparently Rosie has also discovered Tam's Christmas tree so has to be deterred from eating it!  She has now learned to say "dada" and says it over and over.  What a lovely Christmas present for Jon.

We had a windy start to the day again yesterday, but it was just that - windy - though apparently there were gusts of up to 60 mph in some places and there has been plenty of rain with it and flooding in certain areas of Wales.  I am glad to be on a hill . . .

Right, I shall do Hexa Stack and make my brain tired, I hope.