First Sunday in Advent

Now faith is being..

..sure of what we hope for...

Why I have fallen in love with The Cosy Chair

The green tea is organic, delicious and comes with an outrageously decadent teapot, which must surely have been missed by now chez mad Hatter.

The dresser is black as black can be and would surely have pleased Morris in both look and functionality.

It is uber-stylish, but tiny. And dark in colour, yet warm in tone. And very, very new!

And when you ask hesitantly about nut content for suns, a wide, sweeping arm takes in the whole counter and smiles!

You know you're approaching a major Christian festival...

... when you can neither walk around the house nor hear yourself think. Nor get anything done because you keep getting distracted by songs you like!

Preparing for Advent 2010

I have no words! Thanks, Angela, for praying for us- I told the team about you! I feel I could just skip right through the next 34 sleeps right now!

Preparing for Preparing for Advent

Preparing for Advent is tomorrow. Still a little list of things to bake and assemble and print off. But I am excited, full of expectation. Usually before something like this I would be panicked and grumpy. But this is special!

I is for....Ideas anyone?

Six year old Jo: Innocent. (Don't you find this impressive? I most certainly did, right up until I woke up in the night wondering why he was protesting innocence. Free the Strawberry One.)

Seven year Mattman: Interesting. Is. It. In. "Is it in? That makes a sentence, you know, Mummy."

42 year old Mags: Insects.

Disproportionately not what I was expecting... Aphabe-Thursday is here!

ps Frances, I always think you're funny!

In praise of stripes, sponge and Folly

So here are the stripes. I couldn't take a photo that didn't look dark and unimpressive. Not even of the reading chair that now sits at the heart of the home and where we all spend some portion of our day! We love the stripes.

Really couldn't say the same of tonight's first attempt to make a real sponge cake. Oh my. We had even invited very good friends for tea and the cake. Flat as omelettes and tasted as eggy. Cranks cookbook said to use 4 eggs and vanilla essence and only one ounce each of sugar and flour. Can this be right? I didn't think my whisking was effective though. Salvaged by making mini sandwiches with cream inside and jam on top. Politely eaten. Comestible as Nedboy would say!

Took refuge in Erasmus. Only because Prince Charming has driven down into the slow marshes of academia for his latest Local Preachers unit. "Have you heard of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Mags?" he foolishly asked from the reading chair last night. I am still living with the consequences of my proud and patronising response!

Hopeless homework

My homework for this week's alphabe-Thursday is hopeless. It might be taken as a tribute to all the exam pupils I have known and loved who write their name at the top and spend the next hour and a half doodling.

I was going to be Happy because November is my favourite month, I have decided. But then I logged on and read all the fabulously sensitive and moving Remembrance posts and Happy seemed inappropriately jolly.

Mattman has been working on Remembrance for two weeks in school now and told me proudly that he had stood quietly behind his chair for a minute and remembered. I didn't. Hopeless.

Ou est le marche de Noel le plus proche, s'il vous plait?

I was doing so well in my quiet resolve to keep Christmas until Christmas; I really was! 'Twas the month before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was coveting, not even the strawberry mice, but then....

The mother of a singing friend who studies in Paris proudly emailed the brochure for Beatrice's first public performance. On the evening of Sunday 5th December. A little seed was sown. A big present from PC was the fruit!

Hence a very excited friend and an extremely excited I will be flying to Paris on the Saturday- well, a lunchtime flight on Sunday wouldn't make the travelling worthwhile?- and coming home on the Monday. The third Sunday in Advent represents Peace- peace and beauty and beaucoup de chocolat or indeed vin chaud.

For this is where we plan to spend lots of time!

ps If anyone knows how to do accents in bloggais, I would obviously need a crash course!

Greatitudes 325 - 330

I know that I am far too late for Multitude Monday and a whole day late for Alpabe-Thursday but in the excitement of new carpet coming yesterday, for which the computer and the rest of the family room had to be dismantled, and also in the rush of having to collect Mattman from his friend's and then get to the Library, well, Jenny, therein lies my excuse note! G is for my greatitudes, a personal fusion of gratitude and beatitude.

So the stripey colours came, not only replacing the eleven year old once pristine carpet, but also inspiring us to bring just some of the original furniture back in. So now there is the most uplifting feeling of space. We all love it- the boys have discovered that below the now totally exposed shelves, behind the new chair position is a perfect cosy den.

There will be, however, no photos. This week Mise and her white heaven haven have been in a magazine. I am reeling from the fact that such a celebrity might sometimes come to call in the Land of the Humble Strawberries! And indeed we have been busy with friends and visits these last few days, which reminds me of not so long ago, before the lachrymose times, when our philosophy here practised hospitality as a sign of the Kingdom. That has been nice!

Yesterday's caller came for a trial run of the craft session for this year's Preparing for Advent, and that was most exciting! So I leave you with a sneak preview. It may be 50 sleeps to Christmas, but it's only fifteen until our second half day of coffee, cookery, craft and Jesus calm for busy women before the full on-slaught begins.