Wassail! wassail! all over the town,
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown;
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree;
With the wassailing bowl , we’ll drink to thee.

Yesterday was a busy day -

The Three Wise Men finally made it to the Nativity, after their long journey across the living room.

There was LOTS of snow -

about 4″ in 3 hours on Tuesday night, and we woke up yesterday morning to two(!) igloos made by some of the students who live in the close. Some of them had been working on the large one (big enough to stand up inside) till 4am! Amazing work, and didn’t even make a dent of the amount of snow that had fallen.

FB got his first opportunity to experience snow, since he was about 4 months old when it snowed here last year. He had lots of fun, but it was hard work since the snow was consistantly past his knees.

When it got dark we went to Wasail our allotments. We’re very hopeful that the growing year is going to go really well. (It already is – onions are sprouting, and hopefully – underneath all that snow – the broadbeans are still 3″ high and strong.)

On the right hand side of this picture you can see our tiny orchard which was sang to, and where we scattered left over pitta bread from lunch. :)

I have high hopes that this will be a new family tradition, and love that we will be talking about the snowy first year for years to come.

There was a bit of struggling in the snow…

And then we went home to eat stew and the final pieces of our giant mince pie.

(W was there too! But he took all the photos. :)

(The gentle start to a seasonal corner.)

Over the weekend FB had a fever. He’s fine – he doesn’t get ill much (thank goodness) but when he does he turns into a little busy oven. His sleep goes all over the place, and he wants to be everwhere at once.

Add in british summertime ending (so we’re having to coax those were-5am, now-4am get ups back to at least 5am again), and a couple of work deadlines for me, and you have a mama who needs to take extra care of herself.

So here are a few things I’m enjoying right now:

• Dara O’Briain’s Tickling the English which I’ve borrowed from the library and which is proving to be great fun. For the last two nights I’ve gone to bed as soon as all the jobs for the day were done so that I could read this and think of nothing else for a little bit before sleep. I’m really looking forward to the audio version, which I think its going to be great for car journeys.

• Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers (which is still online) and Tender volume 1 (which is going to help make sure all of our allotment produce gets to the table). I’m very excited about volume 2, which is all about fruit and is out next May.

• Organizing Your Way to a Simple Christmas by Organizing Your Way. Not that I’ve done much towards christmas in the past couple of months but it’s got me thinking, and I know that the printouts are going to prove useful.

• The Natural Parenting Center Blog, which is giving me a huge amount of comfort, and In the Fishbowl, which is giving me lots of thinks to think about (even if things have ended up being more hectic around here than I might have liked, which has meant I’ve been very quiet on the fishes comment boards.)

• Making Waldorf Dolls, which I treated myself to last month. Given that I started crafting when I was about 6 or 7 making toys for myself, it’s been a long time since I made much of anything like that. I’m using the tiny start of a seasonal corner on our sideboard as a way of learning the ropes.

Hope you’re having a good week too. What are you enjoying?