December 3rd

It's been a bit gloomy in Suffolk this week, lots of cloud and damp in the air, which often turned into rain.

It was the last of the organised exercise/wellbeing 6 week course but the exercise and social bit is going to carry on for another 12 weeks with another Community Interest Company running it. I'm not bothered about the mindfulness or the coffee but the organised exercise is really useful as I'm more likely to keep doing the half hour if someone is telling me what to do!

Up until a few weeks ago I was using my camera with no problems. It's a good camera that the family got for me for my 60th and has been taken everywhere and used a lot in the last 7 years. Then it started being a bit temperamental and gave up last week. I've got a camera on the phone but as it was a cheap phone it's not as good as some. Better start saving up.

Many people don't send real Christmas cards anymore but I like sending and receiving so will carry on as long as I'm able.

These were made up from some 3D decoupage sheets that I'd discovered among my Christmas stuff at the end of 2021, they must have come from a car-boot or charity shop but I couldn't remember getting them. I put them together last January

My camera was working fine last January!

 then on a rainy day last month I stuck  on  "Happy Christmas" labels and got  all the other cards out of the Christmas drawer. 

All are now written and envelopes addressed. Just need to do notes or letters to go with some of them........usually I start out with good intentions and end up rushing to finish..... I'm now really bad at letter writing and  blame the blog as it's so much easier to tap a blog post than it is to write a proper note!

Really must make an effort this weekend, with postmen threatening to strike again this month they need posting earlier than usual.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

December 2nd

This illustration below is from the internet and shows a German Advent Calendar from the early 1900's

The tradition of opening the doors on an Advent Calendar is thought to have begun in Germany in the late C19............so many of our popular Christmas traditions started there...........and one story tells of a boy called Gerhard Lang who, as an adult, remembered his mother making 24 biscuits for him to have one each day through December and that gave him the idea. He started the mass manufacturing of calendars in 1908.

I seem to remember Advent Calendars becoming popular here in the 1960s but just for children and definitely NO chocolate. It's thought that Cadburys produced the first chocolate one in the early 1970s but they took a while to catch on. In the 80's I was the mean Mum who still didn't allow chocolate or Disney type ones into the house. I didn't want the children eating chocolate before breakfast!

We only ever had traditional ones.......... but I've not bothered at all since 2019, because when I did have one I often forgot to open it, so now  prefer to spend my money elsewhere. It's one of my small money choices.

Now of course there are Advent calendars with everything you can think of behind the doors and many people enjoy them whatever age they are. 

You can have tealight candles, nail varnish, cheese, Lego, make up and many others - in fact you name it and it's there behind a door from 1 to 24. (Even Gin at £73) or for those who have everything what about a Porsche calendar with gifts like gold watches and cufflinks for 1 million dollars!

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Photos in Advent - December 1st

 After the A-Z posts through November .....and thank you to everyone who said they enjoyed reading.... it's back to normal this month with general news of what I've been up to, as well as a Christmassy or winter photo every day of December until the 25th for Photos in Advent 2022.

The December Country Diary plate is having it's first outing along with some of the usual winter and Christmas bits that come out of the cupboard every year.  

The small snow globe, the bell and the snowman were all from charity shops, the house belonged to my Mum and the big snow-globe was bought the Christmas after Colin died- I decided it was a late gift from him for Christmas 2018.

Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire, and Christmas treat

(from The Months by Sara Coleridge)

 December was originally the 10th month and takes it's name from the Latin decem meaning ten. The Anglo Saxons called  it Wintermonarth and then after their conversion to Christianity Halighmonarth meaning Holy month

There are a few bits of weather lore that would have been familiar to people in times past, before we had scientific weather forecasting.

Rain on the first Sunday before Mass, rain for the week

Thunder in December foretells fair weather 

Jerome K Jerome - best know for 'Three Men in a boat' said - sometime around the beginning of the 20th century -

  " If December passes without snow, we indignantly demand to know what has become of our good, old fashioned winters, and talk as if we had been cheated out of something we had bought and paid for; and if it does snow, our language is a disgrace to a Christian Nation"

I wonder what sort of weather we'll get in December this year. November ended very wet but still not too cold, and that means the grass has kept growing but it's never dry enough to cut.

 Being fairly mild means less heating oil is getting used. The remote control thermostat is set in 6 different time periods so if I do nudge it up a couple of degrees in the late afternoon or evening it only stays at that temperature for 2 hours at the most, that way I never forget to turn it down again. At 8pm it reverts to overnight setting and the room stays warm enough until 10pm when I head off to bed.

I've not lit the wood stove much at all as yet but that will be used as the weather gets colder and I'm indoors more.

I was looking back at how much heating oil cost through 2020 at Clay Cottage and found it was at it's lowest price during the pandemic. In that summer 500 litres was less than £200. I've just had my new oil tank topped up and 750 litres was over £600. That means it's almost doubled in 2 years.

Users of oil for heating are supposed to be getting £200 towards the huge price rise but no one has worked out how to pay it to us as yet and I shall get the pensioners winter fuel allowance too. With the  unasked for monthly "donations" from the government towards electric, my fuel bills will be very small  BUT one way or another sometime in the future we will all have to pay for it and all the Covid handouts.  I fear this will fall on working tax payers like my children.

Back Tomorrow

Sue