The final Photo An Hour for 2018 was December 15th. The day had three distinct parts, a relaxed morning, an energetic afternoon, and a late night dressed up in my finest charity shop finds.
8am Enjoying tea and toast in bed with my current read December, kindly lent to me by Sophie to complete my year long reading challenge. I haven't finished it yet, and time is running out!

At 9am I was enjoying a bath.

10am A lazy morning of pottering, doing this and that, I discovered Socks enjoying a sunspot behind the dining room curtains. I left him undisturbed to enjoy the warmth.

11am Boring adulting stuff.

 12pm Waiting for Andy to come home for lunch.

1pm Andy and I went to the wood to gather more firewood, and lit a fire to warm us while we worked. We're clearing fallen branches and trees, a very satisfying job.

2pm It was a cold day but physical work and a bonfire kept us warm. I have to admit I lost several minutes mesmerised by the flames, whilst Andy worked on.

4pm I was home from the wood, Andy had returned for another load but I lit the fire and sat drinking a cuppa with two furry companions.

5pm I was in the shower.

By 6pm I was ready for a night out out. I was off to The Orwell Hotel in Felixstowe to see The Ladybirds Christmas Drag Spectacular!

At 7pm I'd picked up my sister-in-law and we were on our way to the venue.

8pm Waiting patiently for food to arrive (service was a little on the slow side).

9pm The main course was over (and sadly wasn't worth the wait) and I was beginning to feel that it was time for bed...

10pm I don't normally drink coffee but I needed this, I had no idea that the meal would take so long, and the entertainment would start so late. Luckily they started soon after this.

 11pm. Spice Girls Tribute from The Ladybirds, this is Miss Crystal giving Ginger Spice some welly.

At midnight The Ladybirds (l-r - Special K, Miss Crystal, and Leona) performed their final act of the evening, a rousing rendition of The Pogues Fairytale of New York. I sang along, and I sang it loud as it's my favourite Christmas song. I have to admit to being secretly pleased that this was the end of the evening and I could make my way home to my bed. The Ladybirds were very entertaining, but it was way past my bedtime.

The final photo, as I arrived home after dropping my sister in law at her door, shortly before I dropped into bed.

Thanks to Jane and Louisa for hosting #PhotoAnHour. 

November 17th was the chosen day for Photo An Hour this month. As with last month I didn't realise until I was scrolling through my Instagram feed at lunchtime but my morning was pretty standard.

Weekends don't really hold the same meaning for me as Andy always works and as a self employed person the working week doesn't really exist. I work as and when I need to.

So my day started as any other day does. Feed cats, make tea, empty or load the dishwasher, put some washing in the machine, sort out the litter tray. Breakfast, shower, make a to-do list for the day.

I had two things on my list for the day, to make progress with decorating the bedroom (possibly even get it finished!) and get some knitting done.
Fresh out of the shower I found Socks curled into a ball and had to fight the urge to climb back into bed and join in him in his snoozing.


Come lunchtime I'd managed to do one of the things on my list - knitting. It seems I'm incapable of finishing a project before I start another. At some point in the near future this pile of body parts will resemble three bunny rabbits.


By the time 1 o'clock rolled around Andy had been home for lunch - baked beans on toast - and he'd made me a cuppa before heading back out to work for the afternoon. I sat contemplating my next move.


By 2 o'clock I was upstairs in the bedroom. I'd sanded the threshold step so I could stain it, and I'd done some touching up on the skirting boards that I'd painted the day before. This isn't the carpet, it's the ancient underlay. We've been looking at carpet samples for weeks. They're all so similar - mid brown with a slight fleck - we couldn't tell the difference between them so we've just opted for the least expensive of the lot. I plan to buy a huge rug to cover most of it anyway (not that I've revealed this plan to Andy yet...).


At 3 o'clock I was waiting for the stain to dry and had grabbed my book hoping to finally finish it. I'd been reading this book since the beginning of the month and wanted to get it read. I'd been reading a few pages here and there and as a result the story felt fractured. I needed a good chunk of time to concentrate on it. Now that harvest is over Andy is home before bedtime I tend to read a lot less, but if I take too long over a book I often forget important plot points!


I light the fire everyday at around 4 o'clock before it gets dark. I can't believe that it's mid November and we haven't had to turn the central heating on yet. I know we will soon but this is unheard of (the temperature has dropped since and the heating went on for the first time November 20th).


Still on the sofa at 5 o'clock, still with a cat on my lap, and a book in hand, Andy came home and joined us. Which is where we stayed other than to cook and eat supper. I had hoped to nip up to the bedroom and give the step another coat of stain but I just didn't have the motivation. It was far nicer to stay on the sofa, in the warm, with my husband and the girl cat.

The evening was predictably spent watching Strictly Come Dancing.

Thanks to Jane and Louisa for hosting #PhotoAnHour. 

The morning of October 27th went by in a flash and I hadn't realised that it was Photo An Hour until lunchtime. I'd spent the morning pottering, doing housework and bits and bobs so the photos wouldn't have been very exciting anyway.

1pm
I sat down for a pre Afternoon Tea snack. Knowing I was going to be eating lots of delicious sweet treats later on I went for a healthy option.


2pm
Pom poms in the making. It's the perfect thing to do when you've got an hour to spare.


3pm
Pom pom dust! I don't mind the fallout from pom pom making, at least it's pretty.


4pm
Afternoon tea. We went to Seckford Hall in Woodbridge, Suffolk. I can highly recommend it, the food is delicious, the service is good yet unobtrusive, and the location and venue are stunning.


5pm
It doesn't take long to demolish the dainty sandwiches and little sweet treats. I was the only one to eat all it, I'm not sure I should be proud of that fact for not...?


6pm
Home to tea by the fire (because I hadn’t drunk nearly enough tea that afternoon!). I got the fire going and sat with a satisfyingly full belly.


7pm
Neither cat was in the least bit interested Strictly Come Dancing, but it's become our Saturday night viewing.


8pm
Tink left her fireside spot to sit on my lap and then got annoyed when Socks nicked her spot by the fire!

By 9pm I was in bed with a book.

Thanks to Jane and Louisa for hosting #PhotoAnHour. 

Saturday 22nd September was #PhotoAnHour. Thanks to Jane and Louisa for hosting.

My plans to get stuck into some DIY were thwarted when a few days earlier I woke up with incredibly stiff shoulders and limited movement. I had to shelve the DIY idea for a while.

8am - A soothing bubble bath was the first order of business for the day. I'm not sure it did anything to ease my shoulders but I never need much of an excuse to soak for a while.


9am - I booked a deep tissue massage - half an hour of being rubbed and soothed, wincing when she hit the really tight spots. I left feeling a little bit like I'd been beaten up.


10am - My shoulders did feel a bit better but still tight and a little uncomfortable. This didn't stop me having a wander around the charity shops though. I picked up some wool. Age Concern has a good selection of wool at only £1.69 a ball so I stocked up on Christmassy colours to make some (more) pom pom wreaths.


11am - Picking up essentials - milk, hummus and Voltarol! Seriously, what else does a person need to survive?


12pm - Knitting. I haven't knitted this pattern for years. It knits up really quickly and it was nice to start and finish a project in such a short space of time.


1pm Lunch. Totally obsessed with scrambled eggs and avocado on toast at the moment.


2pm - My fridge decided to stop working. I have no idea how old it was but it was here when we moved in seven years ago. It had been on it's last legs for a while and finally just silently stopped. I spent a few days freezing bottles of water to act as cool packs to try and keep the food fresh before the new one arrived, but we did have to chuck some in the bin, which I absolutely hate doing!

Anyway, I measured up for a new one, ordered it online and waited for it to be delivered. I had to pay for delivery, and an extra £20 for them to take the old one away, but I wasn't going to spend a further £20 for them to install it when installation was simply pushing it into a gap and plugging it in.

But the new fridge turned out to be wider than stated on the website and didn't fit, it was about 1mm too wide. It was repacked within 20 minutes of being delivered.

A new (narrower) fridge was ordered and when it arrived two days later (with free delivery this time thankfully) I pushed it into the gap with ease... but the power cord was too short to reach the plug! My frustration prevented me from coming up with the very sensible and easy solution of using an extension lead. Thank goodness for my husband.


3pm If there is one thing that can soothe me and a bad mood it's my cats and a whole bunch of wool. I was trying to sort my wool by colour so I could see what I'd got and decide what to knit next. Socks thought I was making him a little nest to sit in and made himself comfortable. It's impossible to get annoyed with him, look at that face.


4pm I'm not sure if Andy came home because he'd finished for the day, if the weather prevented him doing what he needed to do, or if it was just because he was so tired, but it was nice to see him in daylight! Even if he did just nod off on the sofa. I was happy to let him snooze but Tinker wanted him awake and making a fuss of her, and wasn't in the least bit impressed that he'd chosen to do otherwise.

This was when I stopped taking photos. We decided on fish n chips for supper whilst watching Strictly Come Dancing.

It felt as if autumn had well and truly arrived.

The 18th was #PhotoAnHour day in August. I took part, posting most of my day on Instagram.

8am Late to bed, late to rise. After a late night watching Much Ado About Nothing at the Theatre in the Forest, I needed a big coffee, even if it was only decaf.


9am Tried out a solid hair conditioner from Lush for the first time. I keep it (and my solid shampoo) wrapped in @beeswaxwraps_uk reusable wraps. I didn't like it at first, but it seems to be getting easier with each use. It's very different from liquid conditioners so took some getting used to, but I think I'm going to stick with it. I might have to do a weekly olive oil hair mask as well but it saves on plastic packaging.


10am And the cleaning began. The kitchen got a thorough spring clean (in the summer).


11am Tea break, or more accurately, a jasmine green tea break.  


12pm When shuffle knocks you sideways with THE song that is guaranteed to make you cry. Every. Single. Time. Listen to it here, it's beautiful.


1pm Lunch. Omelette with smoked salmon, spring onion, pepper, feta and chives. 


2pm Going for a ride with Andy. He was working in a field within walking distance of home, so I hitched a ride. It's the most time I'd spent (awake) with Andy all week.


3pm Being dropped off as close to home as you can get in this. Andy was off to a field further away, so I headed to the sofa for knitting and a film.


4pm Sewing up and together, my least favourite part of knitting.


5pm In the company of cats. I have a feeling that Socks had a touch of lap envy.


6pm I gave up on the sewing up and knitted ears instead. Two pairs, because ...


7pm ... I can never have just one knitting project on the go at any one time. I have a monkey without arms, a dog without limbs or ears, and several pieces of what will, one day, be a rabbit. None of these projects have progressed any further because I've started knitting an alien.


8pm The one nice thing about Andy working late is that I can go to bed early with a book. I got to read for an hour before Andy came home and dropped into bed.      

Thanks to Jane and Louisa for hosting.