frayed at the edge

An assortment of birds

First, we have the birdy bunting, which is now up in the kitchen

 

then we had the feathered variety on the feeder

 

I have finished my scarf, which will look good with my "best" navy coat (please excuse my scruffy housework-doing t-shirt)

 

Annette hasn't been well this week, so didn't bake a cake for us ........ but as she knows how much we love our Friday cake, she popped into Border Meringues and bought a delicious gingerbread, and a local delight, a Border tart

 

I have lots of sewing to do this weekend, and hopefully will also put up the Christmas tree and decorate the house.  Do you like to decorate your house now, or do you prefer to do it all on Christmas eve?  I hope you have a good weekend, love Anne

Rain, hail, sleet and .......

.......wind!  I woke up several times during the night, disturbed by the stormy weather.  Then later when I woke again, I turned over to check the time on the digital alarm clock, as I thought it must be neary time to get up.  But there were no bright green numbers - oh bother, the electricity was off.  Fortunately we were able to have breakfast, as some years ago we got rid of the all-electric cooker, and instead intalled a dual-fuel one.  Malcolm phoned the power company to find out what was happening, and it wasn't good news. A recorded message informed him that the power would be off for some hours.  So we popped into Hawick, where the power was on, and headed to Sainsbury's for a cuppa and to pass some time reading the papers.  Back home, the recorded message had changed to say that we might not have power until tomorrow ...... but at 1pm, hooray, the power came back on.  However, the weather didn't improve, with a rather scary hailstorm

 

however, we aren't complaining, as we are watching the early evening news while I'm writing this, and some areas have had, and others are going to have, far worse conditions than we have had.  Once the power was back on, I could get on with my plan for the afternoon.  I assembled these ingredients

 

I lined and buttered the cake tin

 

yes, you've guessed, I was making the Christmas cake.  The recipe I use doesn't require that the cake is made months in advance, a couple of weeks will do.  I hope you like my "action shot" of beating the butter

 

soon the cake was ready for the oven

 

and the kitchen was somewhat messy!

 

two and a half hours later, the cake was cooked - I wish you could smell it!

 

a bit of fun to finish.  I had an email from a very nice man who works for the FBI.  Various organisations around the world, including the CIA, have been .... well, I shall let him tell you what they have been doing

The FBI in group effort with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), World Bank, South African Reserve Bank, and other related agencies have verified every unpaid contract / inheritance / Lotto winnings and agreed to settle the beneficiaries through the easiest means by issuing them swift ATM DebitCard value US$600,000.00 only. We are contacting you because YOU are listed and approved for this payment

all I have to do is send another nice man $210 and he will rush the special card to me, so that I can take possession of my $600,000.  So, you see, there is money to be made with spam

 

 

Beautiful!

After such a dull, grey day yesterday, we were delighted to have a much brighter day for our trip over to Duns.  And of course I was deighted when we encountered not one, but two, tractors (the spots on the left of the photo are on the car windscreen, not the camera lens!)

 

as always the Waterloo Monument stood out against the blue sky

 

after a potter round the shops in Duns, we headed to the garden centre for a bowl of soup for lunch.  While Malcolm was at the counter placing our order, I had a look at my magazine.  I have done quite well cutting down on the amount of magazines that I buy, but this one caught my eye this morning

 

Malcolm chose two different rolls to have with the soup, and as is our custom, we had half each

 

the soup was mixed vegetable, and we decided the strongest flavours were leeks and celery

 

on the way home, this big beastie stopped to let us squeeze past ....... but the car waiting on the right thought he had stopped to let him out - oops, a scary moment as he started to drive into our path

 

we came back through Kelso, and popped into the shop and garden centre at Floors Castle.  You can picture my delight when I saw that they had dozens of beautiful orchids ........ and of course one of them had to come home with me (and it must be a good one, as Malcolm didn't object!)

 

I have been working on two tiny cross stitch kits that Malcolm gave me for my birthday - isn't it amazing how the smaller the stitching, the longer it takes!

 

I looked out this scarf yesterday.  I started knitting it months ago, but then it got put aside. I have lost the ballband, so can't tell you what the yarn is.  Hopefully I will finish it tonight

 

Old-fashioned skies

When I was sorting out some photos for today's post, I realised that I had forgotten about these ones which I took late on Saturday afternoon.  Skies like this always make me think of those enormous paintings you see in museums, which feature God, angels, cherubs, saints etc

 

the maple toffee vodka has been bottled

 

and the Christmas pudding vodka has been strained twice.  First through a nylon jelly bag to drain the liquid from the fruit

 

and then through a paper coffee filter to remove the residue of the spices.  I'll bottle it tomorrow

 

as we are now counting down to Christmas, I changed over the quits on the guest bed this morning.  These aren't the best of photos, as it has been a gloomy, grey day, and I had to use the flash.  For most of the year, the row-by-row quilt is the top one on the bed

 

but this lovely quilt was given to me last year in Melbourne by the lovely Helen.  Although there are no Christmas fabrics in it, the colours are definitely Christmassy

 

Helen is well known for disliking fabric with birds on it, but she had been in such a hurry to finish this quilt, she didn't notice the birds on the border fabric!  So she very generously gave me the quilt top, which Kay quilted beautifully for me

 

underneath both quilts is this log cabin quilt which was one of the first quilts I made twenty years ago.  It is made from curtain fabric samples, and is very heavy!

 

I have been busy sewing all day, but I can't show you what I was doing as it is a Christmas present.  I was using my walking foot

 

but the bar across the centre was making it difficult to see where I was stitching a very precise line

 

I had a word with my resident Mr Fixit (aka, of course, Malcolm) and it was only a matter of minutes until he had solved the problem!  He simply used his junior hacksaw to remove the offending section

 

The wrong weather!

We were disapointed when we saw the weather forecast for Sunday, with talk of cloudy skies, which was not what we wanted for our visit to Jedburgh Abbey.  So we were delighted on Sunday morning to see that we had the wrong weather, with bright blue skies and sunshine.  This is the first view of the Abbey, when you come out of the Visitor Centre

 

at this time of year, the sun is low in the sky, which meant there were lovely deep shadows

 

 

while admiring the magnificent building, it is easy to miss tiny details

 

I declined to climb the steep, narrow spiral stairs to the upper level (I did it last time I was there - not a happy experience), so I gave Malcolm the camera with the small lens .......

 

........ while I stayed at ground level with the big lens

 

I set the camera to B&W for these next photos

 

this is the tomb of the 8th Marquis of Lothian

 

as I took this close-up, I had a shiver down my spine, as I felt that he was going to reach out and grab me!

 

then, of course, we had to go for some sconnage!  We went to the Woollen Mill, where they have the most amazing cheese scones.  They are so big, we only have one between us, rather than the famous Sunday 2-scone lunch

 

to finish ....... if you think the Abbey is a fantastic building, consider this.  It was built using these tools!

 

and the stones were lifted using this very basic device