Winter Has Arrived

Bloomin-eck it's been cold here this week! Winter has arrived in Atticland, just like that. It was so sudden that it came as a bit of a shock and I couldn't quite believe how cold my extremities suddenly felt, or how different my neighbourhood suddenly looked. In my mind, I think of the change in seasons as being a slow, gentle merge, but not so this year. This year, the Summer/Autumn transition was very abrupt and now it's the same with Autumn/Winter. Straight into it, no messing.

At the beginning of the week we experienced a sudden drop in temperature and ice happened. Puddles froze over and parts of the canal became frozen, but most magically of all, the leaking drainpipe at the side of the canal towpath produced icicles. Dangling from the ivy that clambers up the side of this old mill building, making me stop so abruptly in my tracks that I almost dropped my shopping. Real, beautiful, picturesque, wintry icicles.

Beneath the icicled ivy there is a bush which also receives the ice treatment when the temperatures fall beneath zero. Very beautiful indeed in a brrrrrrrrr-freeeezing kind of a way.

Often this week there has been a hard, cold grey light, and a certain wintry bleakness to the landscape. It has been a week for wrapping up warm, for hats, gloves and scarves. I am still happily wearing my crochet makes from previous years (here, here and here) and love the warmth of cosy crochet on head, hands and neck.

On Monday J had the day off work, so after the Little People were safely deposited at school and nursery, we took a walk together. Along the canal, past the waterfall, underneath the castle and up into the damp woodland. Round the pond, up the steep steps, a climb through the wintry trees then out into the open alongside green shadowed fields. It was so cold! We walked and talked our way back down into town and into a large pub for morning coffee beside a roaring log fire. It was a good morning.

Even though the glorious Autumn leaves have now gone, there is still some bright colour out there. Lots of berries this year, on bushes.....

....and in trees. Does anyone know what this tree is called? I spotted it in a front garden in town, it's decorated with the most delicious clusters of pale pink berries. I gathered the image of them safely into my Creative Mind to be stored until I enter Winter-Wreath-Making mode. Pale pink berries, how wonderful! I am quite excited that I get to legitimately include pale pink in my Winter wreath.

My Attic view is about as wintry as you can get without actually having snow land on it. I wonder when the first snow will come, the Little People keep asking me as if I really should know these things. I need to ask my milkman, he is the Fount of All Knowledge when it comes to forecasting the local weather.

It hasn't been all grey this week though, we had the most beautiful skies on Wednesday.

It looked as though someone had thrown a whole load of fluffy cotton balls at the sky. It was so lovely to look at, I spent much of that day gazing skywards.

The fluffy sky was reflected beautifully in the canal water too, it made me happy on that cold day.

Little B and I went on an expedition into the depths of the Attic Eaves a few days ago. He shone the torch and I went in on my hands and knees to search out the cardboard box marked "Advent". Inside the box there are various bits of Christmas decorating paraphernalia and of course, my beloved Advent Garland. Such a joy to see it again, and funny too reading back thorough my post about making it as I was heavily pregnant carrying Little B at the time. Four years ago, cripes. You can read the Ta-dah post here, and the post about the making of the stars is here. If you fancy making some Granny Twinkle Stars, there is a full pattern/tutorial on the Royal Sisters blog here.

I also unpacked my Jolly Festive Bunting, ready to hang on the mantel tomorrow when we celebrate the beginning of Advent. Very sweetly, the Little People were delighted about getting these crochet decorations out and hanging them up. Their delight makes me want to shed a few tears. I absolutely love building these little traditions for them and helping to shape their festive memories. How precious childhood is, how very, very precious.

One other thing that came out of the Advent box was our musical Christmas House tin. It has a little wind-up mechanism that plays a very tinny rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", and each year I fill it with chocolates at the start of Advent. The Little Peeps love it cos they get to eat chocolate snowballs at odd times of the day, and I love it because I can conveniently use the aforementioned chocolate as bribery. Go and get dressed in the next five minutes and you can have a chocolate from the Christmas Tin! The results are nothing short of miraculous.

To counterbalance the onset of Winter, I treated myself to a new candle. I bought just one :: a delicious stripy little number from a rather posh gift shop in town. I am completely in love with it and am torn between really wanting to light it, yet not wanting it to melt. Sort of a bitter sweet treat really.

This week's market flowers are pink roses. It took me by surprise that I bought roses as I don't very often, but the colour of them was so cheery in the grey of the cold day that I kind of fell under their spell.

They look lovely on the table, an unexpected memory of summer time.

I've been working on my latest hooky project during short snatches of time in my busy days. A square here, and a square there. Today I managed to photograph a quick tutorial for making these little squares, and I will share that with you next week.

It's exactly three weeks until Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. I'm weirdly enjoying these short days actually, mainly because it gives me the chance to experience sunset at 3.30pm as we walk home from school. But at the same time I am relishing the thought that we are nearly done with them. Three more weeks. I've even got my special Winter Solstice Candles ready.

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♥.....more snippets from the Attic.....♥

Winter/Spring

Springtime Hooky

Autumn Wreath :: Ta-dah!

Comments

[Frances]

Good evening to you from New York.

Lucy, I cannot remember whether I have ever let you know that I have been to Yorkshire several times...always in the November-December days.

When this time of year comes around, it is such a joy for me to see the photographs you show of views from your attic window. The memories are precious to me. I know for sure that you are helping your beautiful children, day by day, to collect their own wonderful memories.

Amazing to find those roses! I am trying to keep windowsill bound cyclamen and winterterberry plants cheery. I love the cyclamen's white flowers (using them as muses for this year's Christmas card watercolor painting, and the red/green leaves and red berries of the winterberry plant are amazing in their colorway variations.

I've got an Advent calendar on the wall of my minuscule kitchen wall, but so far have not opened window !. Will do before lights out tonight.

Best wishes, dear Lucy. Your posts have an appeal on so many levels.

xo

[carol partridge]

I agree with you Connie...it was the nasty tone and the sarcasm of the post that was objectionable. No need for that. Very hurtful. If you choose to put your personal life for others to read, unfortunately there will always be someone who makes spiteful comments. If you can't say something nice, best say nothing at all.
Lucy has given advice and free tutorials for a long time now and also put in a lot of work at Yarndale. People soon forget.

[Connie Ferguson]

Jen, you are perfectly entitled to your opinion and I take your point.
It was the tone of the post I found to be nasty and sarcastic and the idea that you can criticise how someone else spends a proportion of their hard earned money that I find objectionable. If someone chooses to spend on flowers and candles rather than an expensive meal out, a flashy car, cigarettes, alchohol, a must have phone, designer clothes etc etc then that is their perogative. Everyone makes these kind of decisions about what is important to them. We might not agree with their choices and they may not agree with how we " waste" money. We are all guilty of it to some degree in this consumer society.

[Shirley Ann]

I LOVE the pictures of the icicles with the red window-frame in the background. So pretty. We have only had one or two frosts here in Derbyshire, but I'm sure they will be here soon enough! It certainly has been a year of sudden changing seasons!

[brigitte peetermans]

Your pictures are mesmerizing.
I am SO looking forward to the tutorial of your little squares.

and what a cosy home you have made with all the advent stuff.

Brigitte from Belgium
http://homeiswherethedachshundis.blogspot.be/

[jo thomas]

Hi

Your tree is a sorbus. There are many varieties with many different coloured berries. The most common being the orange but there are loads of colours and sizes. It is one of my favourite trees.

[Katharine]

Gosh we haven't had icicles in the Midlands yet, they do look beautiful.

[Gillian]

Those icicles! It's not been that cold down here. I am loving the short days and winter light at the moment, it's a happy time of year.

Love your tin - bribery is my main parenting tactic. :-) xx

[Alison]

Lovely pictures as ever and that tree is a Kashmiri Ash.

[Jacqueline]

Looking very chilly outside but so cosy and warm in your home. I just love your christmas house tin!

[Katie]

Wonderful pics as always - I love the hillside one from your chill walk. We had a similar icy day last week in Pennsylvania which I captured on my blog. I am very jealous of your crocheted Christmas bunting - so festive!

[Joy]

lovely chilly post to read and enjoy whilst sitting in the warmth of the lounge with the heating on ... I need to do the top of my jolly festive bunting soon and then get it hung!! Love it :-) xx love Joy xx

[Jen]

Hi Connie Ferguson & Careful with Cash & Rae

I've followed this blog for a few years now and have to agree with some of the comment from Careful with Cash.

Years ago it was a simple homely blog but increasingly it became more materialistic, almost every post includes something new that has been bought. The expensive yarns are mind boggling in themselves but it's not only yarns.

(By the way flowers usually last more than a week - why discard them before they're finished, it's like pouring money down the drain!)

The recent post about the Crochet magazine was a real turn off for me. A lengthy post devoted to promoting the publication and enticing readers to buy a subscription. I think Lucy has done well to get a column on the magazine but the post was just too much.

I decided then to stop visiting here, I came back to read comments to see if I was the only one who felt that way, apparently I'm not.

Good luck to Lucy but I'm afraid she has just lost a reader.

[Winwick Mum]

Our Advent candles are all ready to be lit - they have numbers on and for the first week they are lit every day and then it gets a bit hit and miss and we might have to leave it to burn for two days ... then leave it to burn for too long and have to miss a day out ... it's all part of the fun and we love it! Isn't it great creating new traditions with your children that might one day be part of their family traditions? xx

[Rae]

Lovely post Lucy x
Hi Connie Ferguson,I too read the "careful with cash" posting and can only assume they have never ever read any of the postings on Attic24....so I suggest they do so before making assumptions.

My Grandmother always taught me to know the facts before opening your mouth and putting your foot in it! They might like to do the same......

[mouse]

Wow that's cold! - I better get a move on winter-proofing the house since we're at a similar latitude to you guys.

[Kathy, FRANCE]

What a lovely post Lucy!! you do bring a light to our lives! the pics of the icicles are just lovely, you've put me in a Christmassy mood to get going on my own advent decoration! brought back a lovely memory of when I was at school and we'd make an advent wreath out of washing powder (really, we made a kind of dough out of it with water - and then it hardens)!! decorate it and put in four candles to be lit each week leading up to Christmas!
You should be so proud of how you are bringing up your children - they seem to have the right kind of values and that's rare nowadays! well done you!

[Inge]

Thank you for your lovely post!
I enjoy it every time.

[Kate]

The Pink berries look to me like those on a Mountain Ash- was it a tree?- Sorbus'vilmorini'. It is a beautiful tree, lovely dark leaves that contrast with the berries. There is a glorious yellow berried one too, sorbus " Joseph Rock". One of my favourite small trees.

[AlisonB]

Love your Cat In The Hat candle! Will have to ask my parents to get me one for Christmas.

[Connie Ferguson]

Well, careful with cash, you have a cheek. Quite a lot of us are in the same boat and can't afford to spend money on little"extras". However, it's none of your business what Lucy spends her and her husband's money on. I'd never question where you spend yours. Away and stop judging others and go do something for others. Oh and focussing on politicians might be better if you want to pick a battle.

[CJ]

I love this time of year when we are approaching winter solstice. Every day I marvel at how early the sun sets, as it gets closer and closer to 4 o'clock. I love how pure and stripped everything is. Your home is looking beautifully festive. The chocolate tin is a great tip, I think it would work miracles here too!

[Sarah west mids uk]

Dear Lucy love the little crochet squares. About to make some snowflakes!
We have had some frost here but no ice.xx

[One-oh-four]

Wow, stunning photos! I love those tiny berries, they look like miniature apples at a first glance. I'm glad they've been identified, I might put them on my garden wish list! We've been lighting candles here most evenings to try and combat the dark evenings - love your new one, reminds me of Pippi Longstockings!

[Silly Little Sheep]

Your posts are lovely!! You are such an inspiration to me, really!! Winter is a wonderful season when you have a nice warm place to return to :) Those icicles are like from a fairy tale.