A frosty start

 The temperatures have plummeted this morning leaving the frost on car looking very impressive.

I ventured out to buy some fresh veg and make some lace in a favourite coffee shop

and wrapped up the trip by watching the workmen dismantle the big wheel on the Christmas fair.

Crafty update

 I finished the grey mitts and also knitted up some of the random oddments into another pair. I still have quite a few very small balls of yarn so may just make a pair of stripy mitts as well.

I've also turned my attention back to the blackwork band sampler that has been hanging around for a while.

You may have noticed that I'm often in town, this is mainly because all busses around Nottingham run to the city centre meaning that I will often end up catching four busses in one day. Yesterday I realised that I could get yet another different view of the market!!

Cold but sunny day yesterday (Monday)

 This is going to be  a quick post,maily because I'm late getting up and need to head out as soon as I've finished my coffee.

Firstly, I missed posting on Sunday but didn't really do anything !

Yesterday I was down the bottom end of town, Broad Marsh which as the name suggests used to be marsh land many years ago. More recently there was a shopping centre of that name which has been partially demolished. The land is slowly being returned to the wild.

I'm looking forward to seeing the new sculpture zoom in for more details or click here

This is what is should look like, based on the photo.

                                                        named Standing in the Place

I then walked on to the railway station and the canal.

Looking back into town , I could see evidence of the Christmas market above the buildings.

Crafting........some knitting, a bit of stitching and some spinning. Here is the spinning update, more on the others in the next post.

just one more bobbin to spin then I will start to ply.

Christmas in Nottingham

 If you have been following this blog for a few years , you will know that we don't 'do' Christmas. We prefer to take ourselves away from all the fuss and bother and chill for a few days although I realise that we now seem to do this a lot !

However, the U3A photography group decided to have this months meeting at the Christmas market followed by coffee.

Here are the daytime results on a cold wet December morning.

To be honest, not a lot of inspiration or atmosphere. Fortunately I had to head back through town later in the day and had another meander round.

Yep, beginning to feel a lot like Christmas for many people x

Lights

I visited a couple of Christmas craft fairs yesterday in the centre of Nottingham and managed to get round one of them, looking at every stall without a single stall holder saying Hello to me. Please, if you are trying to sell something, at least look up, smile and say hello !
A bit different at the second fair with a couple of really good conversations and yes, I did buy something.

My camera was in my bag so I decided to hang around until it was dark and take a few more photos of the market and the lights.

why do they do it?

Why do they start Christmas so early??? I've always felt that the beginning of December is the earliest time to start with the Christmas lights, markets, nights out but is seems to creep in earlier each year or maybe I'm just a Christmas bah humbug. Maybe I should mention at this point that we do not 'do ' Christmas as such. just a present for very close family, no Christmas decorations, tree or meal. It suits us to have some time together and some time with our niece and nephew on Boxing Day when we can often be found watching motorcycles somewhere in a field or on the beach.

Before I seem a complete and utter Scrooge I will point out that I did go down to the Christmas Market on the evening the lights were switched on although I left a little before the actual event. These days we appear to have a craft/gift fair rather than the German fair that seems to be so popular with a few funfair rides in the market square.

At this point I will mention that there is a stall called Handmade Nottingham although I failed to get a photo of the stall, please have a look at the link as these lovely people make wonderful gifts :-)

I did notice that two days later a couple of the food concessions had reduced their prices along with the stall selling the pashmina shawls so I have my fingers crossed for  the Handmade Nottingham  guys as they compete with the stalls selling imported felted/knitted goods etc.

I hope to grab some photos of Handmade Nottingham over the next few days.