Christmas is almost here!

It's the last weekend in November and I've been feeling Christmassy for nearly a month now! I've planned all my shopping and bought most presents, even wrote my Christmas cards last night! Next weekend is my last shopping trip (I detest shopping in December as it's so busy) so I have a few more bits to get and then it's time to decorate the house! This year I have a 3-bed house instead of a 1-bed flat, so more decorations are definately needed. At the moment I only have a 6-foot tree and some tinsel and lights to put up the stairs, I'm thinking fairy lights in the windows and a wreath on the door ...? I'm also continuing on my home-baking theme and making biscuits to hang on the tree instead of chocolates (which Pete doesn't like).

Talking about home-baking I did try out some recipes which I could make as presents but the Christmas cookies weren't very nice (too chocolate-powdery), instead I've found a lush recipe for Chocolate cake which I made into buns for Pete's last games day and they disappeared sharpish. I'm also falling back on my traditional brownie recipe.

Cute kitten on YouTube!

Autumn is upon us ...

Last night was Halloween, but we went to see fireworks instead. Most local fireworks displays were this weekend which by rights should be devoted to Halloween but instead we're celebrating blowing things up. The display was fantastic as usual and was a good 20 minutes of 'ohhhhs' and 'ahhhhs'. It also gave Pete an excuse to show off his torch prowess, in fact there were quite a few people with powerful torches having a competition on who could light up the trees most (no surprises that these were mostly men).

This week I have been mostly annoying my sister with requests for Christmas lists as I'm starting my shopping early. I'm trying to do it mostly online again but the Royal Mail strikes might make that tricky which is why I'm starting early. This is where cycling to work is not useful, on Friday I received a parcel which didn't fit in my rucksack so will have to stay at work until I drive in.

I'm planning on having a homemade Christmas as much as possible, well that was the plan in summer when I was made redundant but as my knitting pace is one row per quarter I doubt I'll get much finished by December. So, instead I'm baking. This means lots of testing which Pete doesn't moan about. Today's concoction was Nigella's chocolate biscuits which were not good. I have an aversion to anything that tastes of chocolate but actually isn't chocolate, these biscuits made with cocoa were a prime example. But never fear, I have several recipes yet to try.