Advent: A Mixed Start

 A couple of days back I took a photo of the sunset from the front of our house. It encapsulated how I want advent to be; beautiful, quietly colourful, and serene.

Not been quite as serene as I expected/hoped for,  as yesterday we were very busy. We went to the garden centre in Kirkwall which always has a good Christmas display (except last year when it was dire). I didn't take any photos and we didn't buy anything Christmassy but I picked up a couple of reed diffusers. Then it was off to the supermarket to start adding  a few Christmas bits to the normal shopping load. Plus a new comb for me, since mine had gone awol some time before we left on our trip south,. I pulled a face when all they had was black ones, but needs must, I can't do my parting without a comb ...

We didn't have long after we got back before we had to go out again, this time for the village Christmas tree lighting. I put on a jacket that I hadn't worn for a few weeks and you'll never guess what I found in one of the pockets. Well, of course you will guess, because why else would I be telling the story? I'm ashamed to say that my first reaction was 'Well, that was 50p on a new comb I didn't need to spend today!'

The tree, when lit

After the big switch on we could have gone to the village hall for mulled wine/juice and turkey rolls and mince pies, but we passed. Neither of us is a great fan of mulled anything and I don't like mince pies either, and the OH had some for himself at home. Also to be fair there were a lot of people there we didn't know.

We were back at the village hall today for the craft fair. Well attended and with quite  a lot of stalls considering what a small island this is. 

We weren't planning to buy anything but in the end I bought a packet of Christmas cards from the RNLI stall, and we also picked up these two little things

The tardis coaster is a stocking filler for Son no 2 and the penguin is a new decoration for the tree - which we don't need, but they had been decorated by the Brownies who were raising money for the Salvation Army and selling them for only 50p. The same price as a boring black comb in Tescos, come to think of it. 

We are out again tomorrow, for the rather less nice reason of getting our flu and Covid jabs. I'm hoping neither will give me nasty side effects, but we'll see. 

But Anne, I hear you cry, what about the advents? What indeed. 

We started with the jam one, and then the candle. 

And here you go, no 1 in each case

the candle is Christmas Cookie scented ( which is basically vanilla with perhaps just a slight whiff of biscuit dough) and the jam is apricot and orange flower . We couldn't sample the jam because although we thought we had picked up plain croissants at the supermarket yesterday we hadn't, we had picked up almond ones instead. Tomorrow, it will be toast! And I'll burn the candle this evening while I'm knitting, catching up with some Vlogmas videos on YouTube,  and watching Wolf Hall. 

There was a problem with each of my yarn advents (hence my comment about a mixed start). First up was the Van Gogh themed one from The Yarn Artist. 

There's the box, and here is the skein for Day 1 ...

wrapped 

and unwrapped. 

And very pretty it is too. The problem is that the OH went for the option of 24 mini skeins plus a Van Gogh themed project bag, and of the project bag there is alas! no sign. Not very impressive. He has e-mailed the dyer and hopefully we will hear back from her tomorrow with profuse apologies and a promise to get the missing item in the post to us asap. I certainly hope so, because it was an expensive add on. 

Then there was Week 1 of my weekly advent from Layfamilyyarn. I was excited about this because I've never had any of their yarn before and they do do lovely colours. Here's the parcel 

and when unwrapped the contents were 

hot chocolate and biscuits, 50g of 'fluff' (silk and kid mohair) and a palette pack of co-ordinating minis. There was also a card with what purported to be a code for a ravelry pattern to use the yarn on. It's a pretty pattern and I would be more than happy to use it, if the code worked. But it didn't. I have contacted the designer via ravelry; not expecting a quick response as she lives in Australia. 

I'm off now to warm up by the fire and do a bit of knitting. If you've stayed with the post this long - well done, and thank you!!!