Once in a blue moon

We went out to gaze at the moon. We tried to howl at it, which turned out to be harder than I thought. When the moon is 100% full it is as if it is bursting in its roundness.

Thrilled

I can't explain how thrilled I am. Yesterday a parcel arrived while I was out. H had ordered a cushion for me with a photo printed on the front as my Christmas present. It is lovely.

Waiting for more snow

The forecast says we will have snow tonight. So today I will stock up on the food which gets eaten fastest in our house.

I had an idea about how to clear snow paths: lay down old cardboard in a line as it starts to snow, then pick it up once it has stopped. I can't see a problem with that. The gravel would be protected and then form a snow free path for us to walk along. I can't wait now!

I'll run this idea past the children to see what they think.

Advent Calendar 24 - Confused by Mah-Jong

We have worked out a very simple version of Mah-Jong, and even that is a bit too complex for our Christmas brains. The pieces make a lovely clacking sound as we stir them round on the table.

Advent Calendar 22 - Snow All Around

Mmm, it is just lovely in our village. I walked round in the evening so I could post some cards to my family.

The bend in the road by the Cross was covered in ice.The dog drinking bowl outside our pub was frozen over. Earlier in the day I did some stone bashing and boiling water tipping to break thick ice for the birds.

There is such a sense of peace and quiet. It is literally a silent night out there.

Obviously there is anxiety at the risks of falling over and of finding ourselves needing to drive and having problems, but for the moment we are stocked up with essentials and some very non-essential extras!!

Is anybody there, said the listener, knocking at the moonlit door

Please can brave visitors put a "Merry Christmas" in the comments box. I'm feeling a bit curious about who is crossing my threshold. Mind you I hardly ever put comments in other people's blogs unless I feel I have something helpful to write, so I can hardly talk!

An early Merry Christmas to one and all.

Advent 13 - Lights

We have beautiful twinkling deep blue lights around our front door.

Last night I realised around midnight that they were doing a slow flashing pattern which would drive me nuts if I lived opposite us, so I rootled around until I was able to find the plug and switch it off for the night.

It is lovely, but I will be switching them off at 9 or 10pm each night from now on!

Learning

I really like this post at:

http://www.marcprensky.com/blog/archives/000050.html

My children are busy online at this moment. We have no parental controls on the web in our house. My older son IS the techdesk! I say that I am the parent and will intervene for them if they get stuck on any website with some wierdo. We have the medium settings at the moment on Google, I think...mainly to keep the results predictable in a good way.

All the books in our house are available to them. They may buy any paper freely should they wish to. I have the right to be shocked if I want to, but getting knowledge and questioning is their job.

Advent Calendar 6 - Nativity Play

Good - I went to see the children's service and nativity in the next village.
Good - T and H went out and about taking photos in that village while I was busy.

Bad - Why do present discussions get me so riled?
Bad - Coffee keeps me up til 5am, if I had known I would have had another tomato juice.
Bad - A second present discussion went *badly*.

Good - Lots of paths for stomping along round here.
Good - Nice phone call with my parents.
Good - I did listen to a lot of soothing Radio 2 last night, I was one of the 3.46 (am) club.
Good - T and H are out at the cinema.

Advent Calendar 5 - Dinner Party

We had a change of plans last night and found ourselves with 4 boys round the table tucking into pizzas and having some lovely chat.

After that we used all the spare sparklers from 5th November. They burnt quite a few matches too, plus the plastic wrappers. I made comments/squeaks like 'watch your fingers' and 'keep it away from his hair' and they had a great time.

I cleared up the debris from the grass today in the day light. I love parties!

Advent Calendar 3: The Gateway

At our gateway there are some convenient tall stems of a shrub. I have hung a silver star and a beautiful Christmas tree bauble from them.

Since it is customary to put pumpkins out by the gate on Halloween I thought it might be fun to experiment with something Christmassy.

Advent calendar 2: The Crib

I put the crib up today. I like my 3 kings so they are there too.

There isn't an Advent Calendar 1, I just started this idea today!