Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and all that, how better to illustrate that than a photo of my beloved old Christmas tree? It might be old and be tatty tinsel but it makes up for it in nostalgia. It was originally bought from Woolworths in 1974 and was the tree every year when I was growing up.

Eventually in the early 80s my parents started buying new trees (including a real tree one year, the next 10 years were spent finding pine needles in the carpet) but I kept the old one and I've been putting it up ever since! It shares the limelight with a modern fibre optic tree that lights up but sooner or later that one will break but the old tinsel tree will be going on and on...

Erdington's Christmas tree

I took a photo of this Christmas tree on Erdington High Street last week. It looks a bit sparse but i guess if you added anything else to it it would just get nicked anyway! A friend asked if the barriers were to keep people out or keep the tree in.

Lets get the Christmas started

Its still a bit early i know but i've made a start with some Christmas decorations. To be honest i have a few "Christmas-y" animals up all year round anyway so any bad luck had no doubt already befallen me. I have just put up a few animals in the porch so far, there will be more to come.

Putting up the tree

As its December i thought it was time to put the tree up. In the past its gone up in the living room though finding space is always a problem. This year i have put it in the porch instead, plenty of space there and many more people will see it!

I also bought another little animal friend. I really need to stop going to Homesense as i seem to leave with a new friend every time...

In other news i went down to Stratford yesterday to do some more research for my dissertation proposal and research essay. I can't say i'm overly confident with either at the moment but oh well, maybe once i start writing the essay everything will flow. I took a few photos in Stratford which you can see here.

Another animal

This year's Christmas decoration theme appears to be fabric especially if fashioned into an animal. Fresh from buying Maggie the mouse and Rodney the reindeer last week now i also have a moose which i have named Morrissey, natch. To complete the theme i also bought a felt wreath to put on the door. We'll augment these with other decorations next weekend probably.

Christmas decorations 2012

I have bought a couple of Christmas decorations, this year my theme appears to be knitted or cloth animals. I have bought a little reindeer and a huge mouse with an advent calendar apron (as you do). This really is the kind of thing i like, or retro 70s tinsel. Very little in the middle.

One step back or one step forward?

I went to Stratford today to consult some archives and try and get more of an idea of how my dissertation proposal and research essay might progress. I checked out some sales ledgers and accounts from a timber merchant in the mid-1800s and a mysterious world they belong to indeed...

Unfortunately i do not think my research essay idea is that feasible after having a look at these sources so i am back to square one in thinking up a topic... which has to be researched and written up by the end of the year. No pressure then!

However it isn't all bad, the sources will be useful for my dissertation next year and may have given me an idea for a research topic anyway. I just need to try and interpret my notes over the weekend. While in Stratford i took some photos of course as well as some of the Birmingham German Market which was very impressive and makes Stratford's Xmas decorations look a bit weak!

Merry Christmas world

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year and i hope you will continue to come to my blog in 2012.  As i am such a weirdo geek i photographed my Xmas dinner of course to upload to teh intarweb.

Xmas crafts

I enjoyed making Xmas decorations last year so was keen to do so again, though this year i wanted to do something a little different. I collected some pine cones at the weekend and this evening i created these decorations. I put some glue on the cones and then shook them up in a bag containing cinnamon and glitter stars. After the photo was taken i also added a felt accessory and will consider adding some tinsel too. I could have done with some proper glitter to be honest i might get some if i make a second batch.

Pine cones and craft

I was out collecting pine cones and needles this morning. This isn't something i normally do on a Sunday morning but i am feeling like i should be doing some proactive creative things this Yule and not settling back to just eat endless mince pies and watching bad TV. Last year i created some candles and a nativity scene, this year i have decided to take some inspiration from this website on Yule crafts. What i am going to make yet is undecided but i thought i'd get some raw materials anyway.

The pine trees are on a corner of Spring Lane Playing Fields which is near where i live and was the playing fields of my Primary School (i guess the school don't use the fields anymore as its too dangerous?) I wonder how big these trees were when we used to go on nature trails and the like on the field back in the early 1980s? Were they even around then?

Worcester and canal art

I returned to Worcester yesterday, only a couple of weeks after my last visit, only this time to take my Mum there and didn't go on some canal exploration epic. Since my Dad died a couple of years ago she doesn't go to that many places mostly because she doesn't know how. Sometimes it is easy to take for granted how easy it is to travel around, use the train et cetera but when you have spent decades letting someone else make the decisions and doing the organisation when you then have to do it yourself i guess it is pretty daunting. I took her to Stratford for the same reason in the Summer, though she hasn't yet made the trip herself as she said she would, i guess inertia is also another factor.

There was a Winter Fayre in the city and i bought a nice vase at a stall selling hand painted canal style goods. I did want a watering can though but someone beat me to it! I might just get it off their website instead.

Advent calendar Star Wars Lego style

Its been years since i last had an advent calendar, in fact i can't remember the last one i had. No doubt i was at primary school and probably opened all of the days early so i could scoff all the cheap chocolates! Well i have more will power these days and won't cheat with my Star Wars Lego advent calendar. Every day there is a new toy to build and here is the first. It looks a bit like a Rebel Alliance blockade runner to me but then again i do have a good imagination. I will be photographing each days new toy up until Christmas Day, and uploading them to this Flickr group.

An owl at Christmas

For some reason my wife wanted to put the Christmas decorations up yesterday, i did think it was a tad early even for me but so be it. We bought some new decorations and i got this lovely creepy owl. I suspect it will be inhabiting my nightmares any night now.