It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...

Where oh where did November go dear readers? One minute it was October and the next thing I know it's December and I'm starting to think about Christmas ...

This Christmas will be my first one without either of my parents being here and that will take some getting used to. After my mom passed away two years ago my focus was on my dad but since he passed away in the summer I have had to get used to being parentless and that is difficult no matter what age you are.

But on a more cheerful note, November has seen me cooking and baking my way through the month and starting to prepare for Christmas. I don't celebrate the religious aspect of the season as I am not of the Christian faith although my husband is. I see it as a time to help other people who may be less fortunate than myself although I do that all year round anyway.

This year I have started to donate food to my local Food Bank and a bag full of groceries was deposited there this afternoon. I have also wrapped up some children's presents to be dropped off at a local church which go to a local children's charity and I have done my usual boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Miss G has brought a letter home from school asking for donations for the local Food Bank as well so I will be sending her in with a few items next Monday. I have decided to make this an ongoing thing and just add a few items to my weekly shop and when I have built up a stash I will drop it off. I feel that no matter how little some of us think we have there are so, so many people that have even less and it is in my nature to help people even if it's in a tiny way.

A few weeks ago I baked this gorgeous chocolate cake with little oreo's on top. I will add the recipe in a later blog.

The recipe was adapted from a Primrose Bakery one and I am told it was delicious but I don't like chocolate cake and it's not vegan either so none for me dear reader!

I spotted this magazine in Tesco and had to buy it as it's a first on the vegan front.

   

I also made a delicious vegan sausage roll using a sheet of ready rolled puff pastry and a vegan sausage mix.

The recipe for this will also follow at a later date.

A little jaunt into town a few weeks ago brought about another trip to the new library in Birmingham which was visited by the Duke of Cambridge last Friday. He also visited Miss J's college where he was presented a cake made by one of Miss J's cake decoration tutors. He is sending a car to collect both the teacher and the cake on Wednesday and taking both teacher and said cake to Kensington Palace no less!

  

I spotted this tree made out of paper and pages of books in the library as well as a section called Library of Secrets which is really just a stand of old books and you write a secret on some paper and place it in one of the books. Obviously I placed a little note in one of them with one of my juicy secrets !

Merlin the kitten is growing with rapid speed and is still into absolutely everything. Here is is helping Miss G with her homework and displaying his keen enthusiasm for the subject - Physics.

I have not forgotten my promise of a blog about what is in the beauty products we use and I will be back tomorrow with that post but in the meantime I will leave you with a very rare photo of my tidy dresser which has since had fairy lights attached for some extra sparkle!

See you tomorrow folks!