Last Minute

I know there are 52 weeks in a year and I could plan early for Christmas but it never happens. Maybe one year it would be fun to do all of the buying and wrapping for the following year during the previous year's Christmas holidays. I cut and pieced the borders for the huge African customer quilt and prepared its binding but I had to wait all week for the postie to deliver the backing fabric as he was busy with other parcels, apparently.

I also joined the blue and orange quilt together but there is no way it will also be quilted in time for Christmas. The next project was an ipad cover but the thread had a tangle and upset the whole of the bobbin case mechanism. I stripped it all down, cleaned it out, replaced it all several times, tweaked a screw and got it stitching again but it is making a racket and really needs to go to Stirling to be fixed properly.

I taught in two different schools this week – both days were very icy and there was even an overturned Landrover on one of the back roads. Someone had jokingly turned a signpost around in an unfamiliar area so I made it to a new school just as the bell rang.

I decided to support my local High Street and did some Christmas shopping on Friday before returning to a long list of sewing items for gifts.  I had to make another ipad cover, two ipod pouches, an iphone bag, three oilcloth homework folders and two cosmetic bags! I still had not written any Christmas cards or wrapped any of the parcels. Somehow I also had to fit all of the usual chores around all of these extra activities.

We collected a fabulous Christmas tree from the forester at the Glen Tanar estate near Aboyne and decorated it tastefully in silver and white with blue glass baubles that I managed to find in the Red Cross shop. The Farmers' Market was festive with carol singers, plenty of fresh Brussels sprouts and light snow flurries.

After a hearty venison curry, I settled down to watch the spectacular final of "Strictly Come Dancing" and ploughed my way through a pile of Christmas cards. We marvelled at the skill of the dancers and the frivolity of the frocks and thought that all of the finalists deserved to win the Glitter Ball trophy.

On Sunday I packaged up my parcels for posting, finally started quilting the African bedspread and went to the children's annual Christmas piano concert, where they all performed really well. The week ahead is looking a little hectic – more shopping and wrapping, customer quilt, two concerts, two parties, teaching at a school, longarming pupil, remembering to buy groceries, catching the last special delivery post and wondering when I will fit in any cooking. There are also emails that I must respond to and classes to organise so I hope there will be SOME time left to enjoy the run-up to the festive period and eat a couple of mince pies!