We've been away on holiday. Beautiful, marvelous, magnificent holiday. I was very spoilt. We went to visit our family in Cape Town, South Africa. We ate too much, laughed a lot, bought too much yarn, ate far too much cake, enjoyed every minute of our time there, and cried a little when we left. The children adored spending time with all of their relatives - it can be so hard growing up far away from "home," and being surrounded by all that love must have been simply wonderful to my two littles. I'm so pleased that they had an opportunity to get to know everyone.

We also had a birthday! Isla turned 3 and we celebrated with cake cake cake cake cake and a bit of trampolining, running around, swimming, hugs and squeals of delight.


I learnt a lot there too. There's a severe water crisis in South Africa, and you have to be hyper aware of every drop of water. Washing and cleaning take on a whole new significance, and small things that we take for granted - flushing the toilet, brushing our teeth, washing out dishes after every use - become big things. Water used for washing is then used for flushing the toilet or watering the garden. Every drop is accounted for.  I have become so aware (and so ashamed) of how much water we waste every day, and we are making such an effort to continue to preserve water even though we left the crisis behind when we returned to the UK.

And so, we've come back to winter. It''s freezing cold here! The temperature has been dropping very low this week and we've had thermals on and the radiators turned up. I had to dig out socks from my winter clothes stash, and put blankets on the beds. Brrr. It's really very cold outside.

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas with the festive songs playing in all the shops and the lights twinkling on store displays. We've already started selling soaps at Christmas Markets (another excuse to get the tinsel out) so it's jingle all the way here. There's also a lot of festivity at our house as we prepare for a family visit, a packed festive season of local markets to attend, and lots of DIY - this weekend we're lifting up the carpets in the lounge to see if the floorboards can be sanded down and used as flooring. It's all very exciting.