The Tree. And Advents 1 and 7

We put the tree up last week. It was a bit early but we're planning to be away at Christmas so it was either put it up early and enjoy it for a while or don't put it up at all. My preference was for the latter, but as usual the OH's writ was the one that ran. 

Here we go 

My camera issues have now been sorted. A few weeks ago I had to abandon my lovely little Canon because it had run out of calendar. Who knew that was a thing? In practice this meant that, if I wanted my laptop to recognise the pictures and upload them I had to reset the date every time I took a photograph. Not every day, which would have been tedious but doable, but every time I switched it on. That got very old very quickly. I'd had it a long time, I'd taken some fabulous photos on it, it didn't owe me a penny, but I was used to it, and cross about the built in obsolescence and I didn't really want to have to learn to use another one. This probably accounts for the fact that, although I have been using one of the OH's cast offs which he did very generously give to me,. I wasn't that keen to learn how to use it and didn't take in the fact that it runs on a rechargeable battery pack that has a special charger. So that, last week, when I got the charge battery signal I had no idea what he was talking about when he started going on about 'packs' and 'flat chargers' Needless to say the charger was nowhere to be found, we had to order a new one, which didn't arrive until yesterday and several photographs were therefore marooned on the camera until such time as it would work again. 

Happily it is all now charged up, I used it this morning to take the photo of the tree and advent Day 7 and was able to upload the photo of advent day 1, along with several others. So here is today's 

Today being 7th it was an advent swap day and I had some hand made sweets from The Netherlands, not yet sampled. The stitch markers again would make lovely little ear-rings, being small silver leaves. And the yarn colour is 'Mr Tumnus is Arrested,' an intriguing mix of grey, green and red. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works up. 

And this is the delayed photo of Day 1; stitch holders from the swap, a bigger single silver leaf stitch marker  and the yarn was called 'Through the Wardrobe'. 

Elsewhere in a part of life that isn't all about opening small parcels and being joyful I have been having trouble with my ears, which is worrying in view of the fact that we're proposing to fly quite soon. I have therefore consulted a doctor with the result that I am now off to breathe in eucalyptus fumes, which I have to do on a frequent basis,  in the hope of clearing things up. Fortunately I like the smell of eucalyptus, although I suspect I will be heartily sick of it by the time we're done.