Duck at Christmas

As a fund raiser at work we were selling ducks and you had to take photos of your duck in lots of different places.

Here is my Duck at Christmas!

Christmas Photos

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. We had a lovely day, here are a few photos of our fun.

You are never too old to play in a box!!

A Pause in Advent 4

Sorry I missed last week's Pause in Advent - I have been really busy and have the cold as well! I am finding this Christmas harder to get organised for as it is the first one in a long time that I have been working every day. Note to self - start preparing in November next year!

I wanted to share this poem with you today.

Light looked down on darkness
Darkness everywhere
Light said 'I will go there'
Where light does not show
Darkness abounds, in all the world below
Light came in at Christmas
So we all would know.

Peace looked down on warfare
Fighting everywhere
Peace said 'I will go there'
To battle, death and woe
Conflict abounds in all the world below
Peace came in at Christmas
So we all would know.

Love looked down on hatred
Hatred everywhere
Love said 'I will go there'
To hate, disgust and fear
Emnity abound, in all the world below
Love came in at Christmas
So we all would know

So the Lord of Light, the Prince of Peace came in
Silently he crept in, to this world of ours
Crept in beside us, the gracious King of Love
Humbly we adore him
Jesus Christ our Lord.

You can find more posts on Pause in Advent here. A big thank you to Angela for hosting this year.

A Pause in Advent 2- Peace

Thinking about peace today as it is the second Sunday in Advent. I hadn't heard this song before until someone posted it on Facebook, so I thought I would share it with you.

Peace is something we would all like - I wonder what you think of when we say the word. As I write this the wind is howling outside and there have been snow flurries today - not exactly a peaceful night! God has promised us peace - but His peace is not necessarily an absence of trouble, or worries, or howling winds - it is his presence with us in these situations which bring us the peace.

Despite our busy, hectic lives we can have God's peace with us.

This is part of A Pause in Advent, which is being hosted this year by Angela, why not pop over to her blog here and read some of the other posts.

A Pause in Advent 1 - Hope

100 years ago amidst the fighting a remarkable thing happened - guns were put down and enemies came together, to play football, to share together. For a brief interlude the fighting was forgotten and both sides were as one. For a brief moment there was Hope.

On this first Sunday in Advent we should remember that Hope, the Hope that the Christ child brings to the world.

Today there is still fighting, still wars, but we can still have Hope. Tearfund have produced resources for you to hold your own Silent Night Carol Service, to remember that night so long ago and also to remember the conflicts still going on today. You can find the information here

Meet the Nuts!

At our prayers at work this week, we were thinking about how as Christians we do things that others may consider strange. We often think and do things that are different from the way the world thinks and acts. To help us remember this we made these nut people, which I thought were rather cute.

Another thing I learned was that I really need a hot glue gun - I do not know how I have managed all these years of crafting without one - my husband can't believe that there is a bit of craft equipment that I don't have!!

So do you have a glue gun and do you find it helpful?

A Pause in Advent Returns

I am happy to say that A Pause in Advent is returning again this year, with a slight difference, this year it is not being hosted by Floss but by Angela - you can read about it over on her blog here. The idea is that on each Sunday in Advent you post something that makes you think about Advent that makes us stop for a moment and think.

Will you be joining us this Advent?

A nice surprise

You may recall I posted about a new venture His Kingdom Come which were having a blog hop. Well I completed the blog hop, entered and was delighted to win something. Here is me with my lovely surprise

Lots of lovely goodies for me to play with.

You can find out more about His Kingdom Come here

Candle of the Lord

I heard this song last week for the first time and was very moved by it, so thought I would share it here.

I am the candle of the Lord

How great the darkness, how deep the need!
How vast the problems of indiff'rence, hate and greed.
A world rejecting, the truth once known,
And slipping down into a nightmare of its own.
Is there a light that's strong enough to go,
And metamorphosise the darkness that we know?

I am, the candle of the Lord
And truth and love more powerful than sword!
O fan the flame, its single gleam diffuse
And let my spirit be the light that you can use
I am, the candle of the Lord
Light me

How bright the light is, from soul to soul,
A myriad tiny flames expanding to a whole,
How strong the truth it, when joined as one,
And what a miracle this shining could become,
It could transform the darkness that we know,
And clearly light the way mankind must try to go.

I am, the candle of the Lord
And truth and love more powerful than sword!
O fan the flame, its single gleam diffuse
And let my spirit be the light that you can use
I am, the candle of the Lord

Light me, o light me

Some finished knitting

As promised here are my latest finished knitting projects.

The first one is done in Jamiesons Shetland Heather Aran and is a pattern by Debbie Bliss.

This one is done in Rowan Summer Tweed

Something New

I do like something new - don't you?

There is a new online Christian community starting up on 1 November - His Kingdom Come, a creative community of faith. You can find it here. There will be a blog hop on Saturday to launch it and I am sure there will be lots of exciting things to follow.

Why not check it out?

Visit to Roslyn

Several weeks ago our Church took a visit to Roslyn Chapel, just outside Edinburgh. It was the first time I have been there, but a fascinating place.

 In 1446 Sir William St Clair, 3rd Prince of Orkney, founded Rosslyn Chapel. It is thought that the village of Roslyn grew up to house them. The chapel took 40 years to build. It is thought that it was originally intended to be part of a cruciform building, but William died in 1484 and building stopped.

Virtually every surface is covered with detailed and elaborate carvings of figures and scenes.

Roslyn Chapel is the setting for part of Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code. When the book became a best seller it caused an unprecedented rise in the number of visitors to the chapel, which still continues today.

Roslyn has always had a bit of a mysterious side to it, and legends associated with it. You are not allowed to take photographs inside the chapel, so I had to content myself with the outside of it.

If you are ever in the area then I recommend you visit it.

Review - One little Word

You might remember this post from back in January when I chose my word for the year and signed up for Ali Edwards One Little Word project. As the year is starting to draw to a close I thought I should perhaps update you. I wasn't really getting to grips with my word (which was Strengthen), so in March/April time I changed it to the word GROW, which seemed to fit better with what my intentions were for the year.

In some areas I have managed this well and in others not so. I certainly have not managed to keep up with Ali's project, despite buying folders etc.

My main area in which I feel my word has applied so far this year has been in my job, which I started in May. I am now working almost full-time for The Salvation Army and really enjoying it. It does take up a lot more of my time and so other things (like crafting) have had to take a bit of a back seat. It has taken me time to get used to working every day again, which I have not done for a good few years! I feel my work is enabling me to grow in many ways, which is good.

I have completed several knitting projects, which I have still to photo and blog about. My stash of wool has also grown this year - oops!

One area in which I have not done so well is healthy eating and exercise - so need to do something about that!

If you chose a word for the year how are you doing so far?

More Cardiff

We also went to Cardiff Castle

On our last day the sun came out, so we went along the coast a bit to Penarth, which has a lovely Victorian pier.

We then went further along the coast to a medieval village, where Merlin was filmed - it was closed for refurbishment. Seemed to be a recurring theme of the week.

We did enjoy our week and might just have to go back sometime to see the Doctor!

Cardiff

It rained most of the time we were in Cardiff, but we still enjoyed ourselves. We went to Cardiff Bay, which is a lovely place.

The Welsh Parliament building

We had really wanted to go and see the Dr Who experience, but unfortunately it was closed for regeneration!

For Torchwood fans - we were looking for the secret entrance.

Holidays

We are just back from a week's holiday. We went down to Cardiff, which is rather a long drive from here, so we decided to stop for a night at Manchester. Mainly so that someone could go and see Old Trafford. He has been before but wanted to see the new statue of Sir Alex Ferguson.

We also wandered over to the Lowry Centre and Gallery - unfortunately we did not have time to go into the gallery but this is the bulding.

 And looking over to Media City.

Made 2014

I recently signed up for a course called Made 2014, run by Anna K Pasquale, over at http://madecourse.com/. The course is for Christians who want to be creative and to use this creativity to praise God. The course is run by various different teachers. I have never done the course before, but felt it would be good to do at this time.

The first week is by Christine Heister and looks at Personal Metaphors. For our first page we were to prayerfully choose a metaphor that describes where we are with God at this time. During my prayer time the image of a bulb or seed came to my mind. A bulb/seed can spend a long time in the ground not seeming to do anything of great worth, but then if its roots have taken and it has been nourished it will grow into a flower or even a large tree. I felt this was like myself at the moment, there has been long periods when I have not felt I have been doing anything much for God, but because of these times when I have actually been being nourished and taking root, I now feel that different things are starting to happen in my walk with God, and that new growth is happening.

In my page for this I used old bits of books, dictionary sheets, mod podged onto my page and then added some seeds from a napkin and then sketched a few bulbs. I am glad it is the process that is important not the finished process and I have a way to go in the artist dept!

This also sort of tied in with OLW, which I haven't blogged about recently, but will do so soon. As I did actually change my word several months ago - but I will blog about that soon.

A few more

Another couple of photos for the Summer Scavenger Hunt

11. A horn

18. A waterfall

14. A parade - this is the closest I have found to a parade - a line up of plastic ducks in a garden centre

Another Birthday!

August is busy month for birthdays in our house - on Wednesday  I was 21 again!!

I got the DVD Broadchurch - I missed this when it was on the TV but have heard goods things about it, so looking forward to watching it.

A lovely scarf as you can never have too many!

I got this set of really cute owl stitch markers.

My sister got me this cookery book. She has been using it and says it is really good, so look out for some reviews of recipes.

Of course I needed some more wool to go with the stitch markers!

Of course a birthday needs cake and candles!

Summer scavenger hunt

Scavenger hunt is going slowly this year- this working every day gets in the way!

7. A rural landscape

20. A bus with a picture painted on its side

6. an urban street scene

 17. a lamppost

8. A tattoo on a person - thought I wasnt going to get this one, but plucked up courage to ask the boyfriend of a colleague from work when we were at a Fringe show.

I still have 10 to get. If you are playing along how are you getting on?