Green Girl Gardener

Oh dear!  It’s been a while again!  Does anyone else find in the run up to Christmas they have too much to keep in their head all at once?  I’m a perennial list maker, but at Christmas I have lists coming out of my ears, and if I don’t, I forget everything that I’m supposed to be keeping in my head!  I haven’t put ‘write a blog post’ on a list because I thought it was so ingrained in me to do it now, but the things on my various lists have kept me away from Green Girl Gardener!  I’m struggling to remember what I’ve been up to since we last spoke, so thank goodness for photos – I’ve just perused my camera roll to remind myself!

I’ll start where I left off at the end of my last post, my gym Christmas do.  My Secret Santa gift was successful.  I don’t know the recipient very well, but I thought that she seems a fun, Christmassy kind of person, and I know she has young children so I decided to get her novelty tree decorations from Paperchase.  I stupidly forgot to take any photos and now I can’t remember what they all were, but they definitely included this lovely unicorn.

I managed to just about squeeze three decorations into this lovely Gingerbread Man gift bag.

I love Paperchase so much, I can browse in there for ages, and now the bigger Next stores often have a Paperchase in them, as well as a Costa, so I could literally spend hours in there and even have refreshments to keep me going!  If I get chance to pop out this week, I think I’ll see if they have some festive broccoli in the Paperchase near work because I think there is still a little bit of room on our tree.

My Secret Santa gift was amazing. Someone had certainly done their research because I got these great gardening inspired gifts.

I think I’ll plant something in the mug – it’s too nice to keep hidden in a cupboard!

The Christmas party was held at a lovely venue called the Old School House near Lichfield. We had lovely food and a night of dancing to get us in the festive spirit.

This week was also my work Christmas event, which I organised so I was feeling the pressure! Luckily it went pretty well and I think everyone enjoyed themselves – some possibly slightly too much given the size of the number on the bar bill!

We started by doing an Escape Room. We had the ‘Jingle Bells’ package which meant we got a mince pie and a couple of drinks included with our game. We had four teams and two played a war inspired game and the other two teams became samurai warriors. Only one of the teams managed to escape, and it wasn’t mine! I’ve really enjoyed the other two escape rooms that I’ve done, but I was in one of the war teams and I struggled this time. It started off well and we soon solved the first couple of clues but then it got really complicated, so much so that even when it was explained afterwards I still didn’t know what we were supposed to have done. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all!

After this we went for lunch at Marco Pierre White’s Steakhouse which is on the twenty fourth floor of the Cube hotel in the Mailbox, a commercial centre in Birmingham. The food was a bit of a mixed bag. I chose prawn cocktail to start and it was one of the best prawn cocktails I’ve ever had, juicy prawns, crisp iceberg lettuce and plenty of creamy marie-rose sauce.

I followed that with traditional turkey with the trimmings and this was a bit disappointing. The veg was lovely, julienne carrots, roast parsnips, the obligatory Christmas sprouts and crispy roast potatoes, but the turkey was made into a roulade with stuffing and it was stuffing overload but not enough turkey.

I rounded it off with lemon tart with vanilla ice cream and that was pretty tasty but it could’ve been more more lemony. You can’t please everyone, can you?

After we’d eaten we swapped our Secret Santa gifts. I had perfect gifts.

I commented to my colleague that whoever had me obviously knew me well as I got cat and teddy bear themed pressies, and he made the very good point that it could’ve been anyone in the office.  He’s right, I don’t hide my love for cats and teddy bears!

There were great views from the top floor, especially as the sun was setting.

This weekend I made my annual pilgrimage down to Surrey to see my Mum, Granny, Aunt and Uncle and one of my cousins so we could swap cards and pressies. It was really lovely to see them and, as always, I’ve come back thinking I really need to make that journey more often. It’s so nice to be with people that you love, and who love you. With my family being so far apart geographically, I don’t get to experience it very often. Life always seems to get in the way, we’re so busy that time goes by and before I know it, another year’s gone and I haven’t visited. Maybe I’ll add that to my New Year’s Resolutions – make time to see my loved ones more often.

The pile of presents under our tree is growing.

Look at that big snowman sack! That one’s for me from my Mum. How exciting!

I hope they all like the gifts I’ve chosen for them. I guess we’ll find out on Christmas Day.

My Mum likes Chocolate Orange (it’s not Terry’s, it’s mine!) so I crocheted her a little cosie.

 

As well as our Christmas gifts, I also came home with some cuttings that my Mum has taken from her garden.

 

I scrawled all over the photos so I remember what they are! I have two fuschias, one hardy and one not, a salvia, a geranium, a spray carnation and something which may or may not be a ragged robin.

I’ll be sure to update on the progress of these cuttings when the stupid winter is over! Stupid stupid winter!