Counting Down...

I can't belive it's only four days till Christmas! This year sure has flown by. And the last few weeks have been pretty crazy, though I've managed to get a lot done!

I've been out for dinner most nights during the last week, trying to catch up with friends and family before Christmas. Some of my family have already left on their summer holiday, so we had an early Christmas dinner, for which I made this divine Pav! It cracked a little under the cream, but it tasted fab.

Today my Mum and I went to the Yarra Valley farmers market at Yering Station Winery. They specialise in preserves, pastas, and fresh fruit and veg. It's only a small market, but very popular! I also caught up with my sister for a coffee as she happens to work at the winery (very handy!).

I baked our Christmas cakes today, though they are actually just boiled fruit cakes, but just as tasty. I doubled the recipe, and made one for mum and myself, and one for my grandmother, as she doesnt cook much these days. I like to think I inherited my love of cooking from both women. My grandma used to mind me before and after school when I was younger, and we were always baking!

This week the peaches on my tree finally started to ripen, and of course the birds started to help themselves. The tree was only planted last year, and had to many fruit that it started to lean to the point where I've had to tie the branches to the fence to support the weight. I made a yummy white peach crumble with some of the fruit tonight.

Wallflower is almost quilted, just have the borders to go. I don't think I've ever got a quilt of this size quilted so quickly before! I've also put the binding onto B's baby quilt. My plan is to have the binding machined onto both quilts before Christmas, and I'll take them on holiday with me to stitch down on a quiet and lazy evening.

Some of you might remember that I finished my PhD a few months ago... for the last month I've been doing the revisions for my thesis, and I'm handing that in again tomorrow. Its gone from 250 pages to about 275! Tomorrow will see me printing off a couple of copies, having them bound up, and handing them in. I'm looking forward to having that out of the way before Christmas. I'm also excited as I've finally lined up a proper job (I've been working casually for the last few months), so I'll be making the most of three weeks off (and one week away in the country).

Bought some cute fish to hang on the tree; they are glass with tinsel in the centre. We got one pink and one blue (you can just see the eyes of the blue fish on the left).

Last, but certainly not least...Bella. It's been such a long day, that she curled up asleep in the hand-washing tub on the couch! And being a white cat in a white bowl, she is very hard to take a good photo of! She seems to like sleeping in things...