Knitivity scene...

No photographs taken yesterday thanks to a minor disaster on the report writing front. I'd been busy trying to complete a document before Christmas, and finally finished it on Wednesday. Yesterday Pete proof-read it, and somewhere along the line half the file got corrupted - and of course I had no back-up. So I had to spend four hours re-writing it. Fortunmately all the data was in separate spreadsheets so that just needed to be re-formatted. It certainly wasn't an ideal start to Chritmas!

But this morning I sent it off, heaving a heartfelt sigh of relief. In the afternoon we had a family Christmas shopping trip to Stamford (via the local farm shop for their home-made haslet, pork pie and some venison), a small and very characterful town about ten miles north of Peterborough. It was so enjoyable to wander around the streets, looking into the beautifully dressed windows of bijou independent shops. That's where I spotted this knitted nativity scene, which seemed a suitable image to celebrate the day.

I think our favourite shop was a specialist cheese shop, which smelled delicious and was also full of interesting preserves and vinegars, as well as knowledgeable staff with time to stop and chat. Virtually all our purchases were of food and drink to share on the big day - I'm particularly looking forward to the fresh manchego cheese with home made quince paste. I suspect it's a good job we don't live in Stamford as I would be permanently broke, but I really think I shall try and visit more often in 2014. I'd forgotten that shopping can actually be a pleasure.