Red Belt!

Back in September, I joined a women only kickboxing course. It has been great fun, I have made new friends, and got a lot fitter. Today I had my first grading and passed my red belt test! Not only that but I got the highest score in the class! I am feeling very pleased about this, and really looking forward to continuing the course next year. It is important to note that I am not in the picture above which is shown courtesy of http://mixed-martial-art-photo.blogspot.com.

Ho ho ho!

The big day is drawing near: we now have our Christmas tree up, all gift shopping is complete and items are wrapped, all international cards were sent by the postal dates (yay!), little chap has only three days more at school, our Christmas meat order and veg box order have been submitted, and I have even been caught humming the odd Christmas tune or two!



Christmas came early for me, actually, as I received a wonderful package from Katie at L'aubergine joyeuse. We agreed to make each other a scarf and exchange them for the winter months. I knitted a silk scarf in Autumn jewel colours from The Yarn Gallery. I also included some small trinkets to make a surprise package. Katie crocheted me a lambswool scarf in purple (a favourite colour of mine) and included some gorgeous handmade glass beads in her package to me. I was delighted and have been busy planning how I am going to use them. The scarf has already had many an outing. It is slim and long, which is just perfect as I can wrap it a 2 or 3 times round my neck and it fills the space between collar and skin perfectly. Thank you Katie!



I have had a lot of time to myself this weekend, as the older lad brought a friend up to visit, so all the boys (including little chap) went off to the football yesterday, and this morning Guinness Man has taken little chap swimming at the local pool. It has been nice to have this time, and yesterday I managed to get out my paints for the first time in months. I was pleased with the results... and the colours give it quite a wintry feel, so it might form the basis of some cards next year.



I am glad to be seeing this year draw to a close. It has been a hard year, and there has been much disruption to our normal family routine. I am looking forward to turning the corner and facing life afresh in 2008.



I took little chap and his friend to the school disco on Thursday night... it raised £250 for the school playground refurbishment, and was a lot of fun. Little chap is also having his first sleepover here next week (after school has broken up!). He is so grown up now!

I won!

I often seem to win competitions in December! Last year I won the Christmas Raffle at the toy library, the year before I won a PDA from the newspaper, and this year I won a prize in the recent Ecover survey that I completed.

I love little books of wisdom, and so I was delighted to win the "I count" book of ways to stop climate chaos, and the Ecover guide for greener living.

Recent posts of mine have looked at domestic ecological and environmental issues, so these books are very timely, and some of the advice from them may well make its way onto the pages of this blog. Infact, here are some food related ones, seeing as we are entering the season of over indulgence:

FACT:

- £424 of food is thrown away by each person in the UK each year. That is enough to buy 530 loaves of bread! Imagine throwing that in your bin.

FACT:

- A study into food miles by Sustrans in 2002 added together the distance 26 items in a basket of shopping had travelled from its source to the store. It was 250,000 kilometres!

WHAT CAN YOU DO:

- Eating local produce can cut your food related greenhouse gas emissions by 90%

HOW:

- On the basis that seasonally available food is likely to be available from local producers, here is a list of seasonal items for December...

Jerusalem artichokes, Brussel sprouts, Cabbages, Carrots, Celeriac, Celery, Chicory, Endive, Greens, Kale, Leeks, Onions, Parsnips, Potatoes, Swede, Turnips, (looks as though December could be a windy month ;-)

It is also the time of year for game so pheasant, venison, grouse and goose are all options for meat eaters.

I also joined the Leicestershire composting club organised by the county council (it is a matter of some hilarity to my friends that I am so avid a composter!). Anyway, I received some cellulose composting sacks, and also a very useful book on composting from the council for joining. I was delighted that it contained myth busting advice on composting specific items, and also a detailed section on Bokashi systems.

I have also been picking up some craft pursuits again. I decided to use the Regia self patterning sock wool to make some mittens for little chap, as he said his hands got cold when he rode his bike. I'm quite pleased. The size is good. Unfortunately, due to my inexperience with knitting on 4 needles, I inadvertently turned my work inside out, so have a band of garter stitch just at the point of the thumb gusset. However, as that falls across the knuckles, I have decided to look upon it as a design feature! Thankfully it will be easy to reproduce this in the same place on the other mitten. I was pleased to find that mittens knit up very quickly, and am pleased to add another tick to my knitters check list.

I am also making some knitted bookmarks from small amounts of luxury/interesting yarns, some of which I got as samples. I'm planning to add nice beads to each end of them, unfortunately I haven't got any that are a good colour for this bookmark yet.

I mentioned some time ago that I had felted the shrug I made from the ironstone wool my SP10 partner sent me. Well, I finally got around to sewing it up to make a project bag. I'm pleased with it. It has an internal flap as well to stop the items falling out, and as it is felted, this also makes a great place to keep needles, safety pins etc. I'm waiting for the perfect embellishment for the front, which might then double as a fastener, but the bag is already in use, holding the yarn and needles for the other of little chap's mittens!

I seem to be an all or nothing person, hence another long and rambling post after a period of silence!