Project 365 2017 week 52 – the last one

After 4 years, this is going to be the last one of Project 365 for me.  I may link up one photo a week and do a Project 52 instead, but I’ll have to see what I fancy. N has also put the kibosh on photos of him on the blog so I’m going to have to rethink what the blog’s going to cover and how I can still work round that and continue to have the blog as our record which is what I set it up to be.

So 2018 could be a lot of change that I wasn’t planning for. Damn, doing all my goal setting and proper planning for each month of the year in advance, rather than just going with the flow.

Here’s the final week of Project 365 for 2017.  And unfortunately without some gorgeous close up shots of N that I took in the snow and out and about.

*Contains affiliate links

My light pad finally arrived a month after ordering, and on Sunday / Christmas Eve I put it to good use for the final session of my flower photography course for 2017. It was all about backlighting and flatlays.  With lighter coloured flowers it was hard to use without over exposing them, but this buddleia from the garden worked well. I’m looking forward to the next 4 or so lessons in 2018 – onto outdoors so I’m hoping I can find flowers to work with!

On Monday, Christmas day we spent most of the day at my brother and sister-in-law’s house with them and my sister-in-law’s parents.  Then for tea, the inlaws joined us too.  Games were the order of the day, with us getting into Rummikub. Took me back to the days of playing gin rummy with our mum when we were kids.

On Tuesday, Boxing Day, I was getting bleurgh about cooking. I only usually cook Fridays to Sundays, so although I’d planned food for the days we were at home, it was unfortunate we didn’t have lots of leftovers for lazy meals. Actually main meals weren’t too bad, I cooked gammon so we could have ham and jacket potatoes for a few evenings. But the OH and N are used to having puddings each night. That just takes too much thinking about so I decided on pancakes.  The bonus with pancakes is that they’re easy to make and the OH will generally do the cooking of them. Of course there was moaning that I only did enough for 3.5 pancakes.  Delia’s recipe reckons 10-12 but she must have mini pancakes. Our frying pan is big but even so we don’t even get half that number out of the same batter. Everyone was happy with pancakes though.

On Wednesday we didn’t do much. Just hung around at home as it was another cold day (and this gorgeous sunrise). I’d planned to do my tax return and a lot of blogging work this holiday, but N has spent more time inside with me (or just out in the garden), than out on the farm. That’s meant a lot of playing Guess Who and very little blog work done (plus 2 banks still to call because yet again I’ve been locked out of my online accounts!)

On Thursday N was out in the snow at 8.15am. He was determined to make a snowman, but ended up making 8 around the 2 houses/gardens. They were obviously mini ones as while we seemed to have a decent amount of snow compared to nearby, there still wasn’t enough to really gather up.

On Friday it was a shoot day so N was out beating all day. It meant I had a free day and decided to finally head to Oxford to check out the new Westgate Centre. I’d been asked to go for a review back in October, but vouchers hadn’t arrived in time, so my trip had to be when I could. It was nice to be back in Oxford and the new centre is a nice place to shop.  I couldn’t resist going out to the covered market as well – I love it in there (there’s Ben’s Cookies which are irresistable). It was still looking festive.

On Saturday we had a spontaneous day out.  I’d planned all our activites before Christmas, thinking N would be out on the farm most days afterwards, but no. And on Saturday the OH had a headache which usually means he mopes around moving from one dark room to another, so we thought we’d get out of the way and avoid having to be quiet all day. So I suggested a trip to Think Tank in Birmingham.

We’d tried to go a couple of years ago and didn’t make it there due to a 2 hour queue that we gave up on. Thankfully we had no issues this time. From deciding to go, to getting up, showering, booking tickets, checking train times and getting into town, parked and on the station platform with 3 minutes to spare before the train arrived, it took less than an hour. We had a lovely day there and only really scratched the surface.

On Sunday, New Year’s Eve it was a chore day. I put on some beef stew in the slow cooker, we took down the Christmas tree and decorations, vacuumed, realised I didn’t have any soured cream for a recipe I needed to make for New Year’s day, so headed to the local shop and then to another one when the first didn’t have any. We spotted this gorgeous door near the second shop. Then it was back home for lunch and making a chestnut cheesecake for the party on New Year’s Day.