Christmas Presents!

I think it's lovely to give presents that you have made yourself or someone else has made. This 'Frothy Scarf' is a Rowan pattern I started a while ago and had decided that it should be a gift for my Mum this Christmas. Unfortunately I left it till the last minute to pick up and knit the frothy frill around the outside and was up quite late on Christmas Eve finishing it! (Does anyone else leave their knitting around for a while before finishing it?) It was worth it though as Mum is very pleased with it and teenage daughter has decided she wants me to make her one in a different colour, but cannot quite decide whether she wants a frill on it or not.

Another gift I gave, this time to my daughter, was a brass locket containing an embroidered feather which was made by Melissa Wastney of Tiny Happy Blog. I can highly recommend her blog and also her etsy shop in which I find lovely presents for special occasions:

Her Fearful Symmetry

Last night we met at Darcy's house for our book group and the book chosen to read and for discussion this month was 'Her Fearful Symmetry' by Audrey Niffenegger. As it is nearly Christmas there were quiet a few nice chocolate treats and drinking wine before we got down to discussing the book.

One of the attractions of the book was that the story is centred around Highgate Cemetery in London as one or two people had been there and said that it was a definite 'must do' when visiting London. Jenny brought a book about the cemetery with wonderful photographs which we all had a look at and thought that some of the photos were very reminiscent of Dr Who!

Without spoiling the story it revolves around two sets of twins, one of which inherit their aunt's house close to Highgate cemetery in which they must live for a year, but in which their mother and father cannot step foot in.

Opinion was quite divided about the book some of us really enjoyed it but others found it difficult to enter into the book's divergence from reality.

Personally I really enjoyed the book (more than Audrey Niffenegger's first book 'The Time Traveller's Wife') and felt that it was well written and found the juxtaposing theme of confinement and freedom explored in the book really interesting.

This is a good book to read around Christmas time with it's Gothic, ghostly story and setting.

Two winners........

Apologies for not posting straight away this weekend about the card giveaway but I have been in bed with a horrible cold. Anyway - I decided that since I was starting to feel quite festive (even though the only Christmas decoration I have had the strength to put out at the moment is my little Murano glass Christmas tree!), I would pick out two random winners of the cards. So the first name out was Darcy and the second one out was Kristina. So if you could please send me your address as soon as possible to: jacquidodds(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk I will get them out in the post before the last Christmas posting dates.