Grey.

It's been a grey day with the clouds sitting on the top of the hills and light rain. Both of us were feeling weary after yesterday's drive so we had a relaxed morning. After that I felt the need to catch up with the housework. I don't know if it's simply part of getting older that makes me feel uncomfortable when the place is messy or just that not having a life filled with children and work the little things matter more. Anyway, the hoovering is done and the kitchen tidy. I was putting out some recycling and exchanging greetings with our neighbour when she very politely pointed out that a shrub growing on our boundary was pushing her fencing over. Even though it was a bit damp outside I didn't mind going out and sorting out the offending shrub. It didn't take long for me to realise that the shrub wasn't actually growing from our garden as the boundary is a low block wall topped by trellis. There's a gap of about 4 inches and on our neighbour's side are two fence panels, one fixed over the other. The offending shrub is not even in the gap but squeezed in between the two panels. I did cut down everything I could reach from my side and will take it down to the dump and the rest will have to be sorted out from the neighbour's side. Having had a few days off from my exercises today I did one set in the afternoon to ease myself back into the routine.

Above are the mini Christmas stockings I made for the youngsters to hang on their Christmas trees. I had fun thinking how I could personalise each stocking. Below is a chocolate cake I made for Sally. I'd seen the design done with a teddy bear as the cake thief and thought it would be fun to do with a chubby marzipan hedgehog.

 More pictures from the New Forest.

  Lyndhurst.