Let me explain why I have been away for so long. I'll set the scene, shall I.
Busy lawyer daughter and army son in law in UK need a few days r and r with totally-in-need-of-a-rest-Mum and golfed out Dad. Just a quiet adult family Christmas, reading, playing cards and generally relaxing. Sounds like a good plan you say.

Shop closes at 2pm on 22nd December and at home the decorations are out ready to decorate the tree. Really looking forward to having nothing to do for 10 days.

Colin pops out to take my Mum to meet her friends for a meal (she is 86, 6 stone 9 and lives on her own in a 1st floor (no lift) apartment opposite the shop where she can walk to all cafes, seafront, hairdressers, etc) - you with me so far. Totally independent - works at the charity shop two mornings a week . She sees him and promptly falls over breaking not only her hip but also her shoulder. No flesh there to soften the blow. One ambulance to Denia hospital and a hip op later and she is ensconced there for the duration of Christmas. In Spain, nurses do the medical bits and the family do the rest - you get the picture!

Meanwhile, at home the builders finish the extension to our new bedroom on the ground floor at 5pm on Christmas Eve so Colin and I are busily relocating furniture and clothes and stuff up and down stairs (the reason I need a ground floor bedroom is difficulty with stairs) so that daughter and son-in-law can have somewhere to sleep.

As she is so healthy Mum's hip heals quickly and they discharge her to our care within days... except that she has a broken shoulder so she cannot use crutches or a zimmer frame and needs help to walk or rather shuffle. Trips to the loo are a nightmare as her shoulder is too painful to touch and Mum cannot get up without help. Luckily, Colin has a relaxer chair and Mum is settled in there for day and night.

The lady in charge of the charity shop comes to visit on Saturday 1st January and says Mum should have not have been released and needs convalescent care and she arranges for Mum to go into a nursing home for a month where they have all the facilities we don't have at home. Mum went there happily on Tuesday and has now had a shower - a little thing so easily taken for granted.

So my longed for rest and that of my family came to naught. The Christmas tree doesn't need packing away as it never got put up. Victoria and I escaped to the shop for a few hours on the Saturday to scrapbook her and John's honeymoon and we all had a meal out on New Years Eve as you'll see below but that was it.

It wasn't all gloom and doom though....
Colin has a plate of leftover turkey.....you would never think it looking at this photo now would you!!!

On New Year's Eve we managed to settle Mum and then pop out for a couple of hours to the pre-booked meal at the President Bar on the Arenal. It was raining so unlike other years at midnight the place outside was deserted. Normally, at midnight,while the fireworks burst overhead, everyone is outside and greeting friends and the atmosphere is electric but this year was a real damp squib. Inside we tried to make the best of it though Lol!!

I have been keeping a 365 day challenge journal for most of last year - I say this even though I did lapse a couple of times when things in life just got too hectic - ie, moving shop in April and Oct/Nov/Dec when the shop was just sooo busy. It was the idea of the lovely Kate Crane who started this idea last year and is continuing over on her blog The Kathryn Wheel - see on side bar.

This year I intend to carry the idea on but in a new way. With Mum now being taken care of I have premade all -well almost all - the months pages in advance as that is how I fell behind so the new project to start this year off is a journal. It is on quite a heavy watercolour paper so ideal for watery, painty, inky stuff to be added. .

The front cover... inky January...

splattery February...

stipply March...

painty April...

dabby May...

scrubby June...

and July... a touch of Dina Wakley here...

that's all I have done so far but the rest will happen - having made it into a class it has to now doesn't it??

The lovely Becky working on her journal cover yesterday morning.,,

and last but definitely not least the adorable Yaa, my Saturday girl with Elsa who lives in Madrid. Elsa came to my classes all through the summer and is here visiting her Grandparents and came to see if there was a class on - there wasn't - so she could make something. She went away very happy with a star book made with Yaa's help.

So that's it.

Bye for now.
Sue xx