It's me getting all excited about snow again. Woke up this morning to see the city blanketed in a fine layer of snow. So of course I was hanging out of windows and standing on the balcony freezing my toes off to take photos. I unfortunately don't have the prettiest of views to photograph but that is what happens when you live in a city and there was no way I was going out to take photos in the park. Unfortunately the snow didn't last long before the rain set in, and then we had the sun out for a brief time so we managed to get a few seasons in one day.

A photo of some of the work in progress, not often that I have so many colourful bears on my desk. Everything seems to be pastel at the moment but I really must haul out the Christmas colours - deep reds and greens always make you feel warmer but the idea of sugar plums and silver icicles is dancing around in my head.

Bears, Cross Stitch and Fairs

I managed to finish the little Rose Purse bear on Saturday morning, she has travelled around the world waiting to be finished since June. She is a tiny 2" tall and is able to be removed from her bag and worn on her own as a brooch.

I have finished my cross stitch fobs and they are so pretty. I also managed to finish a cross stitch biscornu pincushion which I love but don't really need as I have a passion for collecting pincushions and have 3 on my desk already.


This is the very dark photo of the table at the show on Sunday. We had a table in the basement so it was almost impossible to photograph anything. Austin is behind the table playing games on his laptop, he was already set up before I had even managed to finish putting the bears out but it was nice to have the company.

So much to do and so little time. On Saturday the 8th I watched the Lord Mayor's Show, Austin was only a Marshall at this event but I did get to see him. Watched all the amazing displays and the soldiers marching in the rain, all those uniforms must have got sopping wet. It poured with rain almost the entire day and I got soaked to the skin, especially when standing under my umbrella and realising that it is now so old it leaks.
On Sunday Austin was marching with his unit in High Barnet, luckily no rain but no tube trains where working so Yoon-Mi and I had to take two buses to get there. We got very careful instructions on where to get off bus 1 and catch bus 2. Of course the bus stop that we get off at has no bus route map so we look around in vein, see the bus that we want to catch driving off to the left and head off in that direction, the walking distance between bus stops is quite far but we still have plenty of time. Get to the next bus stop , find a route map and see that the bus we want doesn't come in this direction ( the bus we saw must have been out of service or lost - just like us). So we turn around and walk back , past the first bus stop and find the station where they have got rail replacement buses and we continue the rest of the journey. Thank goodness we still made it in good time and got to see Austin marching to the church for the memorial ceremony.
Took lots of photos but have just put a couple up here.
I have been busy working on the bears for the show on Sunday, all of the bears Wendy sent have arrived in good time and other than a few finishing touches everything is done. This is one of the new bears for the show. Vivian Rose, I had a lot of fun doing silk ribbon embroidery on her sleeves, haven't done it for a long time but it looks so delicate.

I love doing embroidery and incorporate it into a lot of my bears clothing but never find much time to do anything else, of course I love doing my tatting and knitting and the list could go on. So I have made some time to do some cross stitch, just a couple of little projects, this is a strawberry fob to hang on scissors or just to have lying on a table, I am really pleased with how it has turned out and have a couple more almost finished.

It has been an eventful week. Austin's bike got stolen from work, it was in a secure locked area but they still managed to steal it - these things even happen here in the UK. Apparently bicycles are very popular items to be stolen in London.
Vera's house got broken into in Cape Town, now that is more common, but the worrying thing is it is just around the corner from my parents house. I will be so glad when they are living here.

It has been overcast and grey for days now, not very good weather for photographing bears and not good weather for bees
They need the sun to be really happy and this beautiful bee was sitting on my plants for a whole day trying to get some energy to fly home. The bees are fascinating here, they are big and furry, obviously need to be warmer here.
I sat and watched the fireworks from the lounge window on Guy Fawkes day. It was quite far away but still heard the noise and saw all the amazing displays and didn't have to go out in the cold. On Friday night there is going to be a big firework display at Alexandra Palace which we see on the horizon from the lounge window, so I have got the perfect place to watch already.
It is getting dark at 4:00 in the afternoon and it is taking me a bit of time to get used to.

Last night we went to the London Korean Film Festival at the Barbican. Had a really good time, because it was opening night we got goodie bags on our seats and I was lucky enough to get a DVD in mine, of course Austin has already appropriated it.