Merry christmas

Lexi is about to have her first christmas with us . Im fairly sure she has settled in well ;-) its relax time for us now  , or it wil be as soon as the kids GO TO SLEEP ! :-)

really bad day .

Today has been challenging . The car is dead . totally dead and with money troubles looming (temporarily i hope ) this was not welcome news . Also ive managed to injure my back and every part of me hurts  . At least its the weekend ! 
I spent some time making mince pies with my daughter but im so out of energy today . Still , got pies , can eat !

And my laptop is fixed and my dishwasher works  , ive never had one before and it makes so much difference to my life . I have a little problem with low energy an the fact that i fall over sometimes . sometimes quite a lot  . Im tol there may be something in my brain causing it . more tests..... . The dishwasher is a life and energy saver .  it saves me so much time in the day .

random kitchen image , this made me smile because its got a camera lense in , some whisky and a mortar and pestle for the curry spices :-)

Its december again and we have SNOWWWWWW

Its snowing and its amazing and i love it , apart from the fact that my car is broken and my laptop is supposedly fixed but i now cant reach it , so ive decided to try and blog using the house pc . Husband is being very good about me putting his hard drive into the red with my photos but i really need my laptop back .

Im off my depression tablets for now . I can feel my moods are unstable and on many days i have a depressed episode . Im trying to recognise them as such and that makes them easier to deal with ,  telling myself that they are not real . Snow makes it easier , this morning it fell as a fine mist and clung to everything . We have had several days worth of it now and its nearly a foot deep .  My balcony is deep under it , if it continues i may have to invest in a snow shovel :-))

we have had

temperatures of minus 8 degrees centigrade at night here but it hasnt felt that cold , even out in the snow . I have seen a wall hung fire that is on my wishlist for christmas though , id love to read my book snuggled up in front of that :-)

Today is house tidying time hampered by the new cat we have . Her name is lexi and she is a rescue cat . she is two years old and was abandoned by her owners when they moved house . She is a warm weather cat and does not approve of the snow , at all . She spends her time sitting on the bit of floor the hot pipes run under and snuggled on my lap .

OR on my favourite blanket .  She is very comfortable in our house and settled down within minutes . I let her out of her cat box and she sat on my feet and purred .

This is my balcony and garden under snow . Also my herbs , fruit trees and strawberries . The strawberries are totally buried they are just a hump of snow :-)

Missing mountains

It rained here , and stormed . Times liek these i miss Swiss balconies . English doors and windows were not designed to be opened in a downpour . We got that wrong because when it storms the air smells delicious ! The Swiss overhanging roof is a wonderful invention ,. it also means you can dry your washing in the rain :-)

This is a pastel sketch of a photo by Jessica Burnett   , thanks Jess !

beach day ,pastels and driftwood

This afternoon we wandered down to the beach . We looked for fossilised sharks teeth , millions of years old , we dug for baryte crystals in the cliffs .

I did some sketches in soft pastel

My best driftwood find . i found lots of smaller bits too that im thinking up plans for , its so light ! This piece has silky silver branches , i love it .

My new Clematis flower with my driftwood

my tomatoes and my grapevine . these are next to the new lawn . we have lots of bunches of grapes coming on the vine . The other tomatoes got scoffed by slugs , these ones surrounded by gravel are fine . i need to plant up some more tomorrow .

This butterfly went and laid eggs on my olive bush after this , i hope we get a new generation of them , ill sacrifice my olive bush handsomeness for munched leaves and more of these guys  , they are deep blue inside their wings .

Last thing in the evening , the scent of cloves and vanilla on the balcony

umm , ok its been ages.

Ive just been living life I guess and not blogging  . Totally lost track of where i was so im just going to start from now and not try to catch up , because i cant ! . Today we went to a country park to let the monsters loose for a while . As soon as we opened the car door they escaped .

There were wild animals in the grass

doing strange things

The flowers were beautiful . There were lots .

After the country park we went home for a BBQ

Glorious day ;-)

missing in action

I havnt been blogging because ive been far to busy , which is great ! my lawn is growing , but my plants are not however the sun is shining and ive given everything a feed . I lost a courgette to cold , and one squash honeybear and half my tomatoes to slugs , other than that all is well :-)

my potatoes are growing out front and getting curious glances from passers by .

my peas are growing but i found out i shouldnt have planted them next to the garlic . ah well  .

Prunus Kanzan in my front garden . turning my veg patch pink .

a little bit of fun i brought back from switzerland :-)