Advent Calendar

I love advent calendars. Andy's Dad always used to send us one every year and I really miss that. I am going to use the wonder of gif animation to make mine here this year. Last year I used flickr and next year, you never know, I may just have worked out how to do the roll over the picture with your mouse to see the before and after effect.
Each day there will be a picture that in some way is Christmassy, or just wintery.
It is still very cold and snowy here, but our school was open nonetheless! Nursery was closed as none of the Reception teachers made it in, so we had the Reception children in there instead. It was a lovely day. Not sure what will happen tomorrow! Out of 500 pupils in our school, 200 came today.

Christmas Eve!

Fly Father Christmas, fly!

Here is the last advent door-I had fun over the last few days making this one but it was hard to photograph with enough detail. If you would like to see details there are lots more photos on flickr.
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Happy Christmas!

Advent Calendar Wednesday 23rd December

Click on the number to open the door!

Nearly there!

Advent Calendar Tuesday 22nd December

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Click on the number to open the door.

Big fluffy snow yesterday, that caused all sorts of transport problems. It came down so fast and everything just broke! Buses were stuck on hills, points on railway lines stopped working, tubes were delayed and stations were shut. I was on my way to my friend Clare's for a games playing evening so I persevered and got there eventually. We played Balderdash-a definitions guess the true one type of game. We also played Cranium which had something for everyone. It includes questions, charades and mimes, humming to guess a tune, drawing, and model making clues. It has the opportunity for budding impressionists to make their mark! The last game was Dingbats-far too difficult for me-you have to guess a phrase from obscure cryptic clues.
That is my car on the left and looking across the road you can see the lovely Christmas display of the opposite house. They are big on Halloween too. Under the tree are lots of those little German houses with lights in and a little train track runs around them.
I am doing a Suzi Blu class on painting Angels at the moment. This is my first one. I am not sure about her yet. I am painting it on a tall narrow cardboard panel that I found on the bin at work. Far too good to throw away. I think it is packaging but from what I don't know. I quite like her wings-I used modelling paste to make them.

Advent Calendar Monday 21st December

Advent Calendar, Shadow Shot Sunday and A Train Journey

Advent calendar door for today...20

We went to see Avenue Q last night. I really enjoyed it. It was sweet and funny and done really well. The actors are the puppeteers. They are acting and running the puppet and you get this joint effect which is really clever. The set was great-a miniature New York apartment block with rooms that opened up and different levels and windows.

Here is my shadow shot for this week-the lighting rig in the theatre. Visit Hey Harriet here for more shadows.

Below are some photos from our journey into town. It was about 3.30 and the sun was setting. The gold of the sun was catching the buildings in the distance and everywhere looked really magical.

Saturday 19th December Advent Calendar

Advent Calendar Friday 18th December

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Today's photo was taken this morning when I was setting up outside-I just couldn't resist!

Snow falling last night in a very blizzardy way. It looked very bad at midnight.
By this morning though it was not too bad. This is the view walking up the hill to the bus stop. I didn't risk the car though I did go back to school in it tonight to collect my bag of presents!
I was glad we didn't have a snow day in the end as the children enjoyed the snow. We only had just over twenty children in in both sessions (out of the normal fifty) so we had a very relaxed day. We made a tiny snowman with a really big carrot for his nose. We dug the snow, made snowballs and snow angels. This one came out really well considering there was not that much snow. In the afternoon we went for a walk up the hill at the back of the school, danced around a bit, sang here we go round the mulberry bush and then went back for hot chocolate. We went out in the garden for a while and had fun trying to dig up the now frozen snow. Who needs toys when you have snow and some spades? It was a lovely end to the term. I have a day of work to catch up on on Monday and then that is it-holiday time!

Oddments and Advent Calendar

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Click on the number to open the door..

Snow cloud over the playground. Party shoes. L. had a fantastic outfit on-a felted dress and jacket with attached flowers in the colours of turquoise, orange and green. It was beautiful! Her shoes are great aren't they?
Beautiful Brown Anne has got a poll on her blog, asking people to vote on their favourite colour. Mine is turquoise and it is not on the list so I didn't vote. However, I am going to go back and vote for brown today. Last time I looked it had no votes. Poor brown, it needs my support!

I did not like brown in clothes for a number of years as my school uniform was that colour and put me off. Then one day, I realised how much I like it. I had a lovely brown seventies shirt that was one of my favourite things for ages and which looked good with a turquiose necklace-brown compliments turquiose so well-another reason to love it.

All my Christmas presents are wrapped in brown paper this year-easy, simple, cheap and looks good with a bit of sparkly gold on the tags and a bit of brown or red ribbon.

Advent Calendar 12th and 13th December-and Shadow Shot Sunday

For more shadow shots visit Hey Harriet here!

Advent Calendar 10th December

Advent Calendar 9th December

Advent Calendar 8th December

Advent Calendar 7th December

Advent Calendar 6th December-Shadow Shot Sunday Too!

Click on the number to open the door!. Visit Hey Harriet here to see more shadowy shots from around the world.

Advent Calendar 5th December

Click to open the door!

Advent Calendar December 4th

Click on the number to open the door! (Thanks Jessica!)

I found a lovely calendar idea here.

Advent Calendar December 3rd

Eat fruit, or at least think about it.

Advent Calendar December 2nd

My own version of an advent calendar to keep myself amused between now and the 25th. I wish I had a way of making the pictures hide behind little doors! This is a beautiful spherical tree in the environmental centre. It is from the snowy time in February.