love happy

           Dear friends Here's wishing you all a very blessed, gentle and healthy new year. Thank you for your lovely friendships throughout 2013 and for all the great conversations we have had. I do hope that your wishes for 2014 become true for you. With love from Penny  xox See you on the other side!

Well, this is it! I still can't quite believe that this year has flown by with all it's ups and downs and happy times and then sad ones. Thank you all so very much for coming along on this weekly journey of mine. Part of me is relieved not to have these posts pestering me at the back of my head as the weeks have gone by and then the other part of me is kind of sad to let them go. It has made me more attentative to blogging and being aware of all the sweet things that my life is made up of, all the little things really. So here goes with week 52... Alice has been our chief wrapper upper. She loved wrapping anything and everything (except her own presents of course). She has decided that it would be good fun to be employed by Liberty or Harrods as a Christmas wrapper upper when she is 16 (he he). There have been candles galore and long walks when the rain stopped with enjoying Winter trees and some picking of twigs and berries. Christmas day was at my Sister-in-law's home. It...

Ok, so this has been a busy week like the rest of you I have been doing bits and bobs before the festivities begin. I have been working this past week and have found myself juggling allsorts. Fortunately I have Monday off to complete all that needs doing, I am working Christmas eve which I quite like to do, there is always a lovely atmosphere of good cheer at work and coming home in the dark to the Christmas tree and my family makes me happy. So here are quite a few photos of my last week of little happy moments... We eventually put our tree up last weekend when Alice was feeling so much better. It was really lovely looking at all the eclectic and meaningful, memory filled decorations we have bought and made over the years. We decided not to put tinsel on the tree this year, instead filled it with all our favourite decorations. I found an old earing box and covered it with some music paper for my little crocheted strawberry for my friend Janie. I will tie a bow with the left over reind...

Hooray, I finished Alice's surprise Christmas stocking in time for Christmas eve! A few weeks ago she asked me if I could make her a new stocking as she felt she had outgrown her first one we bought from Oxfam for her all those years ago. She said "something bigger and wider" please mum...um I think I might know why I replied...maybe to fit more goodies in? "No" she replied, "just something special that you have made". Ok, that was that the challenge was on.   ? I decided to use this sweet little tree decoration pattern that I used here for a Christmas blog swap with Marianne of Ladybird Diaries.  Only, it had to be a bigger version for Alice's actual stocking. So I got crocheting and experimenting with sizes and here's what it turned out to look like. I think it turned out rather sweet and most definitely wide as per the recipients request! She did ask for the traditional red, green and white Christmas colours, but I just couldn't bring ...

I haven't had a chance to think about all the sweet happy things that have happened this week as it has been a bit of a blur with Alice being so unwell. Can I say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for all your well wishes and kindness in my last post. Alice is so much better and has even asked if she can go to her ballet this afternoon as she is feeling so much stronger. Hooray for antibiotics! I did manage to buy a sprig of mistletoe which I adore. This was one of my little happies from the past week. I haven't managed to get round and read many of your blogs for a while, I hope to catch up with you all soon. Have a wonderful weekend and see you all soon xox ?

Oh dear, Alice is rotten to the core with fevers, and a viral body ache, earache, hideously sore throat and headaches and general feeling like a very poorly girly. I have been working from home these past two days and feel a bit like a zombie myself. I am taking her to the GP this afternoon as it may be tonsillitis because she can't even swallow Calpol at the moment. I have been working on a presentation I am giving to the local Prostate Cancer Support Group on Thursday evening and felt like taking a few photos to depict our "Oh dear" time so far this week in my lunch break. I feel like I have been living in a blur of tiredness and worry since the early hours of Saturday morning and hope that our GP will be able to help. Oh dear, I have just about run out of yarn having about 28 rows to go on my niece's cardigan for Christmas. I hope I can still find the same dye lot in the yarn shop this Saturday. Alice simply NEEDED to put up her little pink Christmas tree in her ro...

What a week! I wasn't even sure that I was going to do my weekly blog post of happy moments this week after hearing about the death of Nelson Mandela, but as they say life must go on and my goodness I have been reading a book of quotes that I have had for ages quoting this great man and it's really inspired me to try and just make small differences in my life which will have a positive benefit on others lives. May he rest in peace. So here are some photos from my last week... Sunsets along our coast and from my window at work (taken on my phone, not doing them real justice). I love the rapidly changing colours of oranges and pinks in the Winter sky. I went up to a work related meeting in London on Tuesday and got there half an hour early so went for a 20 minute wander and took some more photos on my phone. I love the proteas in the picture above and could have got lost in amongst all those flowers and colours. I have casted on a new cardigan for my niece for Christmas wit...

          " I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and to see realised. But my Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. "   Nelson Mandela, defence statement during the Rivonia Trial, 1964. Also repeated during the closing of his speech delivered in Cape Town on the day he was released from prison 27 years later, on 11 February 1990 .   I have no wise words to describe how I feel having heard the sad news tonight. I was there, 20 years old when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. I felt a real sense of optimism about our country and it was a proud day when he became president in 1994. I can only hope and pray that this incredible man's ideals will remain strong in the hearts of all South Africans as...

A while back the lovely Marianne of Ladybird Diaries set up a wee Christmas decoration swap for anyone interested in doing a crafty handmade swap. I loved the idea and promptly added my name to the list, only to find that Marianne herself had ended up being my swap partner. So, I got busy thinking about what I wanted to make and eventually ended up finding this sweet little pattern which I couldn't resist. I had some of my left over Planet Penny cotton to use up and so I got hooking. I love how they turned out, all a little different and really easy to make. I pinned a little vintage image badge and sewed a holly button embellishment on each of them to add to their character. I know that they are not traditional Christmas colours, but I kind of like that sometimes. They are the perfect little size to pop one of these into... Since we haven't put our tree up yet (um, actually Alice did put her pink one up on Sunday) I took these little stockings outside for a location shot an...