Ice!

I had originally planned to cut off the awkward edges of the African tumbler blocks but that would have been taking a shortcut and I conceded that they would look far better if they fitted together as zigzags. Set-in seams are not easy by machine and progress was a little slow; some hand stitching was necessary to fill in a couple of little gaps. It means that this quick quilt is far from finished and now I have a king-sized African quilt to create for a customer by Christmas (fingers crossed.)

I some work on the Yurt book by dictating some notes that I hope my speedy typist can turn into text. I never learned how to touch type and although a few of my fingers can go quite fast, I still have to spell out every single word.

During the week we had gale force winds - snow fell in many areas but missed us for a change. A few trees came down and blocked local roads for a while but there was surprisingly little damage here. The garden Yurt was unscathed but the roof of the henhouse blew away. The chooks were completely unruffled and are steadfastly continuing their egg laying strike.

I spent two fun days teaching in a country school and we went on a trip to a Curling Festival in Aberdeen. The children were a bit apprehensive when they first stepped onto the ice but they very quickly became confident and were soon tactically knocking each other's stones out of the target areas, whizzing up and down with their brushes. I had a go too and it is far trickier than it looks, getting the crouch and release right with a plastic bag on one foot while balancing using a broom. It is like a more exciting version of bowls with the addition of undignified wobbly sliding, although the pros made it look smooth and effortless.

I took Freya down to Glasgow on Saturday for her acoustic guitar exam. Road conditions and weather forecasts were predicted to be variable so I packed the Landy up with sleeping bags, blankets, coats, fluorescent jackets, torch, shovel and bucket. The motorway around Stirling was snowy and foggy but the traffic continued to speed past. We trundled along steadily, did a bit of Christmas shopping on the way and now just have to hope that she gets good results. Fenella remembered to record the semi-final show of "Strictly Come Dancing" and plenty of M&M's were bought for decorating Fergus's chocolate birthday cake. It looks like another week of cramming in as much as possible and I must do something about writing Christmas cards, shopping, wrapping. By Wednesday I should think I will deserve a mince-pie and a glass of sherry at coffee time!