1 I see this wonderful old motorbike most weeks on my way home from my piano lesson (Some progress being made there!) The owner was very happy for me to take its photo.
Very old BMW motorbike and sidecar
2 The owner of the dogs was happy too as I asked to take the photo of these two in their beautiful wooly jackets.
Rather lovely dogs in their equally lovely knitted jackets
3 On our walk around the back on The Great Flat Lode Mr S drew my attention to this very beautiful combination of greeny grey lichen and the seed heads of the montbretia.
1  This morning at choir a friend told us about the moles in their garden, such beautiful little creatures, velvety smooth with little pink noses. When I asked if they didn’t do damage in the garden, G said that, no, they work together. The moles make the mole hills and he collects the wonderful finely worked soil that results and puts it in the polytunnel. Now that’s what I call working with Nature – just beautiful!
I don’t have a photo of a mole so will just share this lovely one of our choir leader, Claire and one of our delightful Choir-babies, T.
T, one of our Choir-babies, enjoying the session. We are all enjoying watching him grow up.
2 Â The lovely Mr S bought me my first Cornish daffodils of the season. We have some in bud in the garden but they aren’t quite ready yet.
First Cornish daffodils of the season
3   I had a lovely conversation with KJ tonight who tells me that suddenly Grand-baby T’s talking is taking off and she is repeating everything said to her and beginning to make jokes with words. I just love the magic of a child learning to talk!
1 Â My favourite birds are back – the Long Tailed Tits who arrived this morning. I love the way they live in families of several generations and they are just such beautiful little birds. They didn’t stay long so this is a photo I found online. Thanks to the photographer.
2 Â I have made a new Christmas decoration. It’s a clear ball filed with all the bits of wool cut off from all my knitting for the Grand-babies this year. I read about the idea ages ago and have forgotten where it came from but have been saving the trimmed off bits of wool since I started knitting for the Grandchildren some 4 and a1/2 years ago, each year in a different bag so there are now four wooly-bits baubles.
Wooly-bits bauble
3 Â I fell in love with this tiny tea-pot when in Nepal. I think the colours and the inlay are very beautiful.
Tiny Nepalese tea-pot
PS Â I sewed some sequins onto T’s hat but they didn’t enhance it one bit so they are all off again and I will post the hat as soon as I can. I can hardly wait to see T’s reaction!
1 Â I finished, I think, the Christmas Tree hat for Grand-baby T. What do you think? Does it need more decoration, some sequins perhaps, some other coloured stitched baubles? Please advise!
Christmas Tree hat for T
2 Â I went with my good friend M to a lecture lunch at Trelissick today. The lunch was delicious, the lecture about Cornish customs at Christmas fascinating, and spending time with my friend just lovely.
3 Â Tonight I was all dressed up (best American long dress in green and black and my gold Doc Martens, the ones that gave rise to my nickname by the pupils at school of Goldenboots) and ready to go and it all went pear-shaped. The lovely Mr Smith stepped in and suggested we go out for a meal instead to take my mind off things so we did. We’ve just returned, all dressed up, and, as it turned out, we did have somewhere to go!
All these were seen in two cafe gardens where we stopped off for a drink on the long coach journey between Chitwan National Park and Pokhara. If anyone can help me to identify them I would be absolutely delighted!
Dragonfly, Nepal
Spider
Found in Nepal
Butterfly in Nepal, look carefully to the left of the photograph
Papilio demoleus, Nepal, I think
Butterfly the same colour as the marigold it has alighted on
1  Our friends last night brought these beautiful flowers and I’ve put them in a brass bowl that was my Mum’s. I’ve polished it up and love how it all looks.
Beautiful flowers in Mum’s brass bowl
2 Â I was inspired by LouAnn‘s blog this morning and this afternoon have made her Toffee Bars. As she says, “Seriously easy and seriously delicious!” Seriously wicked too and all the better for that! Thank you, LouAnn.
Delicious Toffee Bars
3 Â Â I’ve finished knitting a Christmas Tree Hat for Grand-Baby T. She just loves wearing hats! Now I just have to decorate it. Â I’ll show you the decorated hat as soon as it is finished and T in her new hat as soon as I can.
1 Â We have a beautiful Sailors’ barometer and today it is overflowing telling us that another storm is on the way! Sailors used weather glass barometers to forecast the weather. These simple, yet scientific, devices accurately predict the weather by barometric pressure. Basically, when the water level in the spout is high, it means low air pressure (rain, snow, storm, etc) is imminent. When the water level is low, the barometric pressure is high, and that indicates good weather.
Sailor’s barometer overflowing
2 Â Delightful Skyping with KJ and the Grandbabies this evening. It’s such fun to watch them playing and to see their excitement at seeing us on their television!
3  Had lovely friends round for dinner tonight and I made this delicious and simple but effective starter of prawns and smoked salmon.
1  In a lull between storms we went for a walk from Helston to Loe Bar through fields, woodland, swampy mangroves, alongside the biggest freshwater lake in Cornwall and along the cliffs above Loe Bar – a brilliant walk for photographs!
Having our picnic before we set off we saw so many beautiful little birds – Goldfinches  Long tail tits, Blue-tits, Coal tits, a Wren and a couple of Goldcrests and some Pied Wagtails, more than we’ve seen in our garden for a long time. On the walk we saw cormorants and ducks of all kinds and a couple of hawks.
Goldcrest
Cormorant?
2 Â All along the way I was amused to discover ‘The Green Gym’ for those for whom the walk was not exercise enough!
The Green Gym 1
The Green Gym with Loe Pool in the background
3  The reflections in the pool and in the puddles were beautiful. I took a self portrait of me doing what I love , taking photographs of beautiful things in the great outdoors!
