It’s Christmas Time

Well, I hope you have had a wonderful time – it is so for some of us. Luckily, for me, I now have time off work and can now spend some time getting out cycling and I had time to make another quilt. I will show them at the end.

First cycling. On Christmas Eve, we knew that there would be carol singing across in the small town of Yarm. Its a very old town which apparently was called Yarum back a thousand years ago.  On the way across , we noticed that the river was very swollen near Thornaby. There has been so much rain of lane that there is still lots of flooding.

 

Well, it has blue cobblestones and so there was Carols on the Cobbles accompanied by a brass band.

 

We also met our cycling friend Carole on the cobbles and sang together.

As the darkness fell just before 4.00pm the rain started falling and many people departed which was lucky for us , as it was easy to get the bikes out and on to the road.  We cycled home in the rain and enjoyed a meal on our raclette. We bought it many years ago in the Netherlands and its become a bit of a Christmas Eve tradition in our home. Cooking at the table is so social.

Christmas day didn’t see us do any cycling as we had guests coming to lunch which was beautifully cooked by DS1.

Boxing Day , is the day to visit family further north. My older brother had returned from their holiday home for the week so we called in there and I was able to gift a quilt I made a few years ago to my nephew and his wife. Actually, it was the Rajah quilt I made back in 2016 and as it was based on a convict quilt. As my niece  in law is a barrister, it seemed a nice place to go.

We also visited with my younger brother and his family so it was a lovely day so we only got a short ride in early in the day. I stopped to photograph this plant that was blossoming near the river.

Friday dawned dry and DH needed to go to the bank to pick up receipts for church so agreed to ride with me to Stockton where I couldn’t resist sale fabrics in Panico’s. Another quilt is being started soon.

Saturday was another lovely dry  day and the sun even came out for a short spell. We headed off up through Coulby Newham and along to Hilton and then Hutton Rudby. We werent too sure where we were riding to so turned off with the idea of going to Swainby.  However, we got down near Carlton in Cleveland  and noticed lots of other cyclists. We headed along through Faceby – well I did  – somehow DH and I got separated. I got down to the main road being ‘policed’ by motocyclists. This was for the Velo29 sportive which was why there were so many cyclists about. I had to turn back from here and eventually DH and I met up again. From there, we went down into Great Busby and stopped in the church porch for a hot chocolate out of the wind.

Soon we were back into Stokesly and then home. 74 miles for the week

So YTD on Komoot is 4708 miles

Now for the quilts which I have made for my sons. This Harry Potter one was for DS2 who is a HP fan.

I tried to quilt Golden Snitches in the white spaces.

This one was finished because when DS1 found out about the HP quilt he wanted a quilt too. Like kids they are. This was a free  pattern from the Missouri Star quilt company

I did many different free machine patterns in each square

And this one doesnt have a home but was made in 10 days as it was trying something out and I got hooked on making it using spare minutes when I could.

So, there is a couple of days until the year end so hopefully I will be able to get a few more miles under those wheels.