Christmas starts here!

Today it was time to travel over to meet up with my brother, Phil, and his wife, Chris, and swap our advent presents.  We met up at the outlet Junction 32 on the M62 (useful naming - I always forget the junction for IKEA yet have no problem with this particular outlet.)  As well as enjoying the chance to shop we had a lovely cup of coffee, a catch up and a particularly nice Gingerbread muffin (I could get seriously addicted to those!)






So - what caught my eye?  As you may recall I am into gingerbread people as a theme this year and so bought the male partner for the female I bought several weeks ago.  The Christmas ornament was a Gisela Graham one - I do love her work - whilst the little hanging plaque was a favourite quote from the film "Now Voyager".  There were other purchases but ......... (well, Christmas is coming!)


The weather has been dreadful for most of the morning but brightened up this afternoon.  However, as I have said before, the beach is to be avoided with all those visitors looking at the seals.  Instead I took the opportunity to get to the halfway stage with the mystery gifts - before working on the kitchen again.  I have decided to swap the dog bed and the table over - and hang some curtains at the French windows which lead into the conservatory - it will be so much cosier then.

Finally it was time to finish the ironing mountain, put everything away and then settle down for some hand sewing in front of "Strictly Come Dancing".  I am working on a second Gail Pan Candle Mat and will hopefully have the finished article to show you tomorrow.  By the way - for any Gail Pan fans out there she is participating in a daily blog hop and has uploaded a lovely little elf stitchery pattern.. You can find the pattern here.