Further decorations in Castle Life.

Being very interested in... or nosey about... other people and their lives and their houses and their things, I thought I'd complete the tour of Castle Life's Christmas decorations. (Except for the one that Blogger refuses to upload. It's of a very nice stained-glass wreath of holly that Daughter 1 gave me a couple of years ago. It hangs on the glass door into the dining room. You'll just have to imagine it. Or come back next year, maybe.)

Above, you find some balls that I hung from the light fitting in the sitting room. Mr Life, who's a tall chap, occasionally bumps his head on the yellow ones, which are glass and HEAVY. But it's better to be tall on the whole, I feel (from my 5'3 at most height). I usually have some genuine mistletoe hanging from it, but couldn't find any this year. So there's some fake stuff. Hope this doesn't encourage fake kisses.

My mother-in-law made these birds and I hang them on the sitting room handle in her memory. Don't know why the photo is so blurred. I need to adjust the birds a bit to make them more even. I've been thinking this for some years now.

She also made this, in cross stitch. She died in 1992 at the age of 70, from breast cancer. She lived with us for the last six months of her life because she was too weak to look after herself. My father-in-law had died in 1984 at the age of 64. I often think how thrilled they would be to see our children, their only grandchildren, now.

Now come things that I would like to claim I'd made, but I didn't. I can't even remember where I got this mat - a sale of work somewhere, I expect.

This one was made by Daughter 2's German exchange partner's mother. It's pretty, isn't it?

Our sitting room tv, with stained glass box on top and stained glass ornament leaning against it at the bottom.

A wreath. Again, I didn't actually make it. Oh the shame. A sale of work buy - I think Angela Stewart in our church made it.

And back to the dining room - shelf unit with a glass ball and some crystal snowflakes hanging from the handles.

Again in the dining room, a crystal holly leaf.

Now, as a reward for ploughing your way this far, a couple of gems from my marking of students' essays:

"Teenagers should be prone to take contraception." Can't argue with that one.

"She was in a comma for two years." Shouldn't laugh really - sad story.


I have a huge mountain of ironing to do so I'm off to do it. Happy Boxing Day, all.