One weekend down, two to go

The first weekend of the Christmas Open Houses was a great success here and the house is looking lovely after all the frantic tidying last week. We had a steady flow of visitors all weekend so many thanks to those of you who came and especially to Del and Alexis, two of the artists exhibiting here, for their expert entertaining of youngest child after my husband was laid up in bed with back pain.

Ruth's fused and stained glass decorations have been really popular, deservedly so. Her stocks are quickly becoming depleted so please come along soon if you would like to see these.

We are now in December so it doesn't feel too early to be talking about Christmas. We have a variety of cards, decorations and other Christmassy bits and pieces here as well as affordable arts and crafts so if you're in a present buying mood, come and relax with a glass of mulled wine while browsing. We are open from 11am - 5pm Saturday and Sunday.

The Big Chill Begins

A slight exaggeration perhaps but the temperature suddenly dropped today and our heating decided to go on holiday yesterday so the air does have a certain wintery feel in our house.

Bearing this in mind, and the fact that it is now November, I don't feel so bad about introducing the "Christmas" word. I have been telling youngest child since July that she is not allowed to sing Jingle Bells until the Open House starts and I never used to do Christmas until after middle child's birthday (end of November) but I don't feel so bad about it this year as we did at least have a proper summer.

There will be various Christmas goodies on offer at the Open House. I do sachets of spices to make mulled wine, Christmas decorations and stockings (I will post pictures of these at some point) and we will have Christmas cards as well. Vicky and Del have some great cards - check out their websites http://www.vickysworld.co.uk/artwork and https://www.facebook.com/delthorpesdrawings?ref=hl - and here are some of Leonor's.