Well, it's been very busy. After my last post, we spent the weekend indoors, and made the apple and rosemary jelly. It set beautifully and is the most glorious colour - a sort of pinky-gold. We tried some on Sunday evening with our roast pork and it was fabulous, so we're confident about giving it as part of Christmas gifts. This was followed by a week of pre-festivity bustle - peak card making season and I sent a box of hand made cards down to the GRW charity shop. Cards for overseas needed to get away early, and we had a few to go.

Last weekend, we went down to see our friend Rhian in Burry Port with the two hounds. Took a parcel of festive goodies, including some jelly, some biscuits for the dogs and some home made chocolate and cranberry bark. It was lovely to see Rhian and the dogs, and we went over to Pembrey Country Park for a walk, cold but not raining or too windy. Callie and Mic, Rhian's dogs are very settled and happy and it is still so lovely to see them looking so healthy and full of life, when I remember how they used to be. Callie was a bony hat rack when she first came to us for foster care - now she is a glossy, muscular dog, with a twinkle in her eye, bags of confidence and a sweet, trusting nature. Mic still bears physical scars from his past but now his coat is lustrous, his eyes shine and he is another love sponge - just demands cuddles. Seeing the two of them galloping about, sniffing, playing and cavorting is one of those Christmas gifts that is priceless. I attach some pics of all of us.

Since then, I'm beginning to feel like we are over the busiest part of the run up to Christmas. I've posted all our cards, and I only have to make one for Andrew. On Sunday, we got our tree and that is now up and decorated in the living room and looks (and smells) wonderful. We bought a plain wreath and decorated it with ribbon, baubles and orange slices that I'd dried in the oven, so it looks gorgeous on the front door. I love putting up and decorating the tree - it is one of the most deeply charged emotional moments of the year. Many of the baubles are very old and have a story to tell, and have been picked up on various travels. More importantly, the smell and the look of the tree, twinkling away in the house, immediately transports me to childhood Christmases and every one since. Even when I lived by myself in a flat, I would always have a real tree and it's a tradition that matters hugely to me. One of my favourite poems is "A Celebration of Christmas Trees" by TS Eliot and I love the way the poem captures the fact that what matters at Christmas is the repetition rather than novelty - rituals of any kind build their power as they are repeated, gathering layers of meaning and significance as they go. This is why I am always horrified when I read magazines or even see cookery programmes that gaily suggest novelty at Christmas - that seems to me to be entirely missing the point, of how it is celebrated. It is of course very powerful too to create your own traditions - something Andrew and I wanted to do as a couple, rather than simply replicate bits of our individual festive DNA.

Once the house was sorted, I could then move on to my other task this week, making a fancy dress costume for Boola, our greyhound. James, middle nephew is coming for the weekend, and is going to enter a junior handler class with Boola at a local greyhound charity show. Another of the classes is a Fancy Dress one and James said he would be up for it. So I ordered an elf costume for James over the net, and decided to make one for Boola. Essentially it is in two parts - I've made a green coat for him with felt triangles peeping out at the hem in red and green. It has a simple girth closure with a Velcro fastener. Above this, is a green collar, again adorned with many more felt triangles in two different lengths, but also with bells sewn on., and also fastened with Velcro. It's been a bit of a faff to make, but I am hugely pleased with it now I've done it and would now feel a lot more confident having a go at something like this again. The hardest part was trying to interrupt Boola's nap this afternoon to do some fittings - he was very unimpressed at having precious sofa time disrupted and made his views very clear.

Unfortunately, I caught the Welsh news tonight on TV and it seems we are in for some severe weather at the end of the week - fingers crossed that James can still come and the show goes ahead. Because of the weather, I nipped out this evening to stock up at the supermarket, thinking that tomorrow will be chaotic, as people often tend to panic buy and it's a busy time of year anyway. So, if nothing else we've got plenty of food and supplies in regardless of the snow.