Well, blow me down: it’s been rather a while since I did one of these, but somehow with the urge to make things appearing once more (nothing at all to do with Chrimbly, oh no – perish the proverbial! – or with having a small baby, oh goodness me no), I think a list is called for. Not least because there are also things which must happen which aren’t remotely interesting, and they should not be allowed to just peter quietly out until they drop off the list completely…

So here, in no particular order, is the list for December.

• Wrapping paper: we have stamps, we have a recipe for edible paint, we have brown wrapping paper, we have a small girl. ‘Nuff said.

• Chrimbly baking: so far, the list includes the dark solstice cake to which Antoinette introduced us, Lebkuchen, mincemeat, mince pies, jewel biscuits (those ones with broken boiled sweets which form windows when baked), possibly a gingerbread house (bastard roof collapsed, though), some (more) peppermint bark, the Aztec (?!) variant I read about t’other day while trying to work out just why it’s called bark in the first place, and probably a few things I have already forgotten.

• Two stockings. Quercus has one; the small girl has one. The smallest girl will have one, even though it won’t get much use this year, and you know what? I demand my own stocking. Thus, I shall make myself one. Yes. Indeed. And hope some blighter fills it.

• Submitting my tax return. Infamy, infamy; they’ve all got it inferme… Yes, it works better when spoken, that one, doesn’t it?

• Cream felt bunting, based on the autumnal variety in the last issue of Rhythm of the Home. We have thirty-two autumnal-coloured lanterns after a little, er, episode of craftiness which struck in November, and I’m now working on some half-sized cream ones for a more wintry feel.

• Going to see the reindeer. The farmer up the road has two reindeer which live on their farm year-round, Cinnamon and Spice. This year they are probably even big enough to look as if they could pull a, well, some sort of vehicle, even if not a sleigh.

• Mittens for the small girl. Nearly one down, one to go.

• Cast on the purple cardigan. I leave it at that.

• Window stars, as shown by the lovely Claire.

• Apple nut brittle. Oh, so very yes. We have already done a few versions of this, with the best being a honey, cranberry and spiced-berry-cordial number which was devoured in twenty-four hours.

• Boiled wool jumper for the small girl. I have four wool jumpers in the crafty cupboard begging to be made into something; two years ago, I made the small girl a pinafore dress out of a cast-off from the aged parent, and I’m itching to do likewise with a rather fetching brown job handed over by Quercus, who always roasts in wool. I’d also quite like to make a pixie bonnet for the small girl, as I made one for the smallest last night and am so tickled by how sweet she looks in it that I must inflict further examples of said confection on the world forthwith.

• Open sodding bank accounts for the girruls. (I can’t say ‘girls’ without thinking of that story about the Scottish teacher – played by Maggie Smith in the film, I think? – whose name escapes me, but whose accent does not.) Child Trust Funds. What a bag of shite. Also, Junior ISAs and the fact that you can’t transfer CTFs into them: a bigger bag of shite. Also, while I’m on a roll, banks who won’t let you open accounts without making half-hour appointments, and are then surprised that you can’t leave the children for whom you are opening said sodding accounts elsewhere for the duration of the bloody appointment. Grr. And also, bah.

• 200 words on green cleaning products as the intro to a magazine article. A page of writing on Radical Homemaking, UK-style, ditto.

I should probably leave it at that, methinks. Quite probably I won’t get even half of these things done. And you, gentle reader? What are you plotting and planning this month?

Somehow February just sort of slipped past without me noticing, and, good or bad, no particular intentions declared themselves, other than the day-to-day sort, so let us draw a veil over that, and particularly over the last sodding week, which has mostly been coughing, worrying about small child’s coughing, and then – oh yes – a bit more coughing, interspersed with quiet triumph as the garden became gradually less broken. Of course, it being February, it did rain a fair bit, which means that our dominion over the earthly bounty is not yet complete – rotovating heavy clay in pissing rain didn’t appeal even to Quercus – but we’re well on the way, and… and WE HAVE PLANTED RASPBERRY CANES! All of our very own. Largely because Quercus’s mother brought some with her, but still – an actual plant is inhabiting our garden! And it may even have leaves! (Soon.)(Insert small but energetic monologue on the delights of seed catalogues, and on the impending over-sowing in which I am likely to indulge.)

Anyway, the wheel turns, and once again we find ourselves on the brink of spring. This year spring seems to have taken a long time to arrive. More than any year I can remember recently, this winter, or, strictly speaking, the bit of winter which comes after midwinter celebrations are nothing more than the odd stale mincepie and memories of too much stuffing, has taken a long time to shuffle on its way. I love winter; as autumn turns colder and the stars glitter as bright frost descends each night, my heart sings for the creativity I feel as I shiver in my cardigan, for the prospect of hot water bottles and steaming mugs of chai, for furry slippers (of which more anon) and warm pyjamas (preferably with owls on them). But the bit after all that, well, it’s less appealing to me, somehow, or at least it has been this year. I am genuinely looking forward to warmer days, to greenery, to LESS MUD, thankyouverymuch. The notion of having a genuine, bona fide garden? Well, that just adds to the tantalising visions of spring which suggest themselves with every ray of sun which passes the window. I am that pillock buggering about on a 9°c day with bare feet and all the windows open, just because the sun is out.

Which brings me to my intentions for March.

• Felting slippers. I has bought me a pattern, I has, and I is licking my lips with anticipation at the thought of slippers of such wondrous hues. The colours! The patterns! The potential! Anyone out there actually done this? How resilient are they? (Though I doubt I could bring myself to care, given the colours! the patterns! the colours!) (For those of you who asked about my previous slippers, they are these; I’ve had them for, oh, about four years, but the soles are worn through, the inners a dim and distant memory, and the seams are coming apart despite three fixes. I’ve loved them, but had hoped they’d see a tenth birthday, given the price-tag. Meanwhile, Quercus has had a gorgeous pair of Celtic Sheepskin slippers which lasted four years or so, and is now just about coming to the end of a brief fling with some ‘Anton’ Shepherd slippers, and they’ve lasted only about fourteen months, which, given the sum involved, is pretty rubbish. Ho hum. We are both slipper-wearers given that we have a drafty house with a slate floor for our main living space; I cannot bear most slippers, particularly on men, so I am stupidly picky, I think. But still… One must have some standards…)

• Repairing my patchwork throw. I’ve had this since I was about seventeen, when I beat a friend to it across a crowded charity shop, elbowing several venerable members of the community out of the way in the process. It’s made of curtain remnants, which makes it sound rather hideous, but the overall effect is one of shining loveliness. It’s probably about thirty now, mind you, given how long I’ve had it, and the fact that it was far from its first flush when it came to me, and is, predictably, coming apart at the seams. Some rather helpfully-sized brocade came to me from our local charity shop, and thus I must embark upon what is frankly a slightly daunting task; I’ve already fixed the blighter once, but underestimated the overlap needed to avoid embarrassing coming-apart moments… Forth Bridge, I tell you.

• Finding someone to value my bloody piano. I’ve made the decision to sell it – in fact, I’ve made the decision to sell anything which isn’t nailed down, given the direness of the financial straits which this next year will see us navigating – and now I just want to get the fuck on with it, but so far the one person I know who does this sort of thing is proving deeply unhelpful in that they don’t respond to either answerphone messages or emails, and, in two weeks, have yet to fix a time to go and appraise the piano. So, back to Google, I think. I want this ball bloody well rolling this month. Carpe whatsit and all that.

• This month, I’m going to make a real effort to remind myself that there is no deadline. I am not living some sort of test. No-one will fine me if things aren’t done when I’d thought they would be (with the exception of my tax return, which I smugly managed a full week before the deadline). Our house is not falling down (I hope…), and our garden, while not finished, will be, sometime soon. I must learn to be more zen about all this, frankly. I have spent quite a lot of time since finding I am pregnant fretting about the house, and when we’ll do the ceilings and the internal plastering, and all those other million tasks which stand between us and a declaration of ‘complete’. But… I don’t want to be so busy fretting about all this that my life slips by. I will only be pregnant (with this child!) once, and I will only spend the small girl’s third year with her once. We live through these years now, and only now, and I am learning, slowly and sometimes painfully, the value of recognising and celebrating this. So, with this in mind, this list is staying at three – oh. Ahem. Four. Four things.* The list is staying at four for this month, and this last one is the most important of all. SLOW THE FUCK DOWN, and lighten up already. Or a less American version thereof.

And you? Have you plans for world domination? Minor invasions? Major overthrows? Or just perhaps a spot of seed-planting?

* Maths was never my strong point.

Chrimbly was good – lots of snow and sitting about and then lots of slush and ice and wishing it would sod off while eating mince pies and eyeing up the ginger wine.

Post-Chrimbly – so far, still just cannot believe that I am back to getting up at 6.45 and sitting at a desk for five mornings a week, but other than that, life is good. I have News, but I’m not yet able to share it here because of the, er, width of my readership… But I don’t want to fall completely out of the habit of blogging, which I am in danger of doing if I don’t pull my proverbial out and get on with it.

Ugh.

Which isn’t very helpful, really, is it, but still, it will make sense in due course, I think.

Still to come: this year is going to be the year we destroy the inside of our house and rebuild it. Given that we live in our house rather efficiently, using ALL OF IT ALL THE TIME (well, nearly), it’s going to be quite challenging finding a way to take down ceilings and strip off old plaster while still, well, living here. Knackered it may be at present (and let us not speak of the gaffer tape and wallpaper paste required to preserve wall integrity lately), but it is sort of intact, if that makes sense, and the idea of hacking into that order, even if it is utterly duff in nature and deeply deserving of a refit, is slightly daunting in a way that the kitchen and bathroom just weren’t, given that they are tacked on in an extension. I think the thing is going to be to just move into those rooms (now finished, complete with tiles and grout! of an oatmeal sort of colour!) and try to ignore the chaos beyond the kitchen door.

So, intentions, in a slightly more verbose manner than is strictly decent:

1. Garden: we’re going to have a bit of a January push on sorting out some outstanding business – paths in the muddy hellhole which passes for a garden, some beds dug in for later in the year, some grass seed sown. I’d really like to be able to get back to growing some proper veggies this summer; with the extension self-build and the re-rendering taking over most of the summers since the small girl’s birth, we’ve done little more than tomatoes and the odd herb for three years, so it would be nice to get back to a level of produce which might actually have an impact on our sodding, sodding grocery bill. The intention, then, is that we get path sides in, and find some paving slabs for stepping stones. (My role in this is probably going to be chief bottle-washer and whatnot, as it tends to work out that Quercus does Heavy Muddy Things while I ponce around with the small girl, making something out of felt.)

2. Food: veg boxes. Anyone out there get them? And from whom? And do you like…? We are spending about £65 a week on groceries, and I am determined that January will be the month when we bring that down by a tenner a week. Part of the problem is that food just seems to cost more than it did a few years back, by a disproportionate sum – i.e. 7p for tinned tomatoes in 2005 now = 42p – but we also need to trim how much we cook (we often have leftover rice, for example, but now we’re henless, this ends up composted more than it should), and our tendency to stockpile, which is fine in theory but we never quite seem to get to the bit where we find ourselves shouting smugly ‘ooh – no need to shop this week!’. So, I’m hoping to get more organised, going back to menu plans but perhaps on a fortnightly footing, and maybe switching to veg boxes delivered, with just possibly meat boxes too. These scare me slightly, given my veggie tendencies and lack of familiarity with general Meat Cooking, but I want a change, and I want to get away from spending lots in evil supermarkets, and I’d also like to eat more organically. So, anyone with tuppence-worth to add, please be my guest.

3. TAX RETURN.

4. Organising: we need to start pruning our possessions where possible, after the chaos of building work and having things in storage; when we get to the rendering work later in the year, we’re going to need to pack up the main house and put things away for a while, so it would be useful to have somewhere to put them… This means… sorting out the attic. I’d like to Freecycle/sell/donate to charity half a dozen things this month, and I’d like to organise some of the utter bedlam up there into some semblance of order.

5. Start knitting something. I have shitloads of wool. Oh yes. Now to knit something and actually stick with it, after months of thinking ‘oooh yes, knitting – I remember that’. I’d quite like to do something like a cardigan for myself; I have eight very large balls of pure Cornish wool which I inherited from my mother, and it would be nice to do something with it, finally.

So, a short list, but a corker nonetheless.

Witter, witter.

How about you? Good break? Lovely food? Horrendous presents?

Once more, pinched from the Suburban Yogini after her post reminded me that a new month is upon us, here comes a list of intentions for the forthcoming month. I’m enjoying the focus this sort of list offers; no pressure, as it was only ever intentions, but a useful reminder if you find yourself with a spare five minutes and a brain which has dissolved parliament, so to speak.

So, here goes:

1. Grout the tiles.

2. Make some Chrimbly bunting.

3. Clothes for the small girl’s doll -
- velvet trousers
- some sort of fleece/felt top
- velvet shoes

4. Craft Project for Quercus, the details of which shall remain unspoken due to Quercan Prying Eyes. (All I can say is I’d keep your eyes on that Ilex fellow – he looks mean.) Abandoned due to incipient craft madness.

5. Fleece goblin hoody-scarfy snood (?) thing for the small girl.

6. Brown dress with toadstool for the small girl. Postponed.

7. Watercolour the unfinished wooden toys I’ve got en route from the States for the small girl. (They’ve been shipped, so should arrive in the next two weeks.) Postponed due to realisation that had gone completely overboard on presents.

8. Sand and paint the wretched, wretched skirting boards.

9. A decent walk three times a week. – ish.

10. Earlier to bed by fifteen minutes at least three times a week.

11. Freecycle three things From The Attic. (Shudder with me, dear reader, at this prospect.)

12. Assemble reliable Chrimbly lists for anyone who’s going to be on the receiving end of presentage from us.

13. Make wrapping paper with the small girl. This year: brown paper with plasticine stars stamped thereon. Let there be chaos.

14. Chrimbly puds and cake.

15. Eleven felt reindeer to go on whatever shambolic tree effort we end up with. (Locally they are selling for FIFTY POUNDS. Clearly, that’s not on. To the drawing board, I say!) Three we ended up with, and three were fine.

16. A red fleece heart for each day until Chrimbly, for the small girl to hang up somewhere in an unspecifiedly pretty manner. (Two down, twenty-three to go.) Eight we ended up with, and eight were fine.

17. Some sort of present malarky for the Gothic Folly (my brother).

18. Last-minute felt advent tree.

And you? What games have you afoot this month?

Shameless because it was pinched from Suburban Yogini. I’m feeling a bit out of focus today, in lots of ways – fuzzy around the edges, and directionless. So, something which reminds me of where I’m going, and where I’ve been, seems a timely concept.

November, then, will hopefully include the following:

1. Finish tiling the kitchen, including the scary bit around the sink and the grouting.

2. Finish painting the bottom of the house.

3. Two coats of paint on the gates. Well, one completely done, and the other undercoated and half top-coated.

4. Sanding the skirting boards in the kitchen and the bathroom. Didn’t get within spitting distance.

5. Painting said skirting boards. Ditto.

6. The small girl’s fleece quilt. (I had some white fleece bought for nappy liners; we didn’t use it for that because of the ongoing nappy rash which drove us to disposables; it’s big, but not big enough to be a quilt on its own, so I’ve bought some red fleece and am going for a double-sided-with-contrasting-stars-sewn-on-in kind of thing.)

7. Decent length walk three times a week. Some weeks yes, some… not so much.

8. Swimming once over the weekend. Not even remotely.

9. Earlier to bed by fifteen minutes. Quite frequently yes.

10. Quince cheese-making.

11. Mincemeat-making.

12. Craft swap!

13. More fruit in the ol’ diet. Not bad on veggies, given that I think my favourite food is probably sprouts, but I’m trying to improve on fruit too, and particularly while there are lots of local varieties of apples about.

And you? What do you hope November holds?