I’m sorry it has been such a long time since I last blogged. My time has been spent looking inwards, as I usually do at this time of year, reflecting on where I’ve been so far, how I’ve arrived at this current place and thoughts of the future.

I have been busy with work and the remaining preparations for Christmas. In the cold, dark evenings I have been sock-knitting. I like the fact these socks are in double-knitting and apart from some difficulties with the grafting of the toe (again) they knit up quickly and easily. They are much longer than my other socks and use one 50g ball per sock. I used Wendy’s Peter Pan (not sock wool) because I like the colours.

I have also been busy with Christmas parties and outings. On Tuesday we had the work Christmas outing which was nice, if a little hot, there was lots of dancing and I hear before the night was out, some oddities on the dancefloor (and some missing trousers somewhere along the line).

Yesterday my very good friend and I went to see Thea Gilmore at the Sage in Gateshead. I thought her last gig there was probably the best gig we’ve been to, but last night blew it out of the water, it was amazing.  Her new ’seasonal’ album Strange Communion was just amazing.  I have loved Thea’s work for years, but I truly found this concert to be some of her loveliest work, especially as she sang one of my favourite songs from a previous album; December in New York.

We had Rod Clements (a member of folk band Lindisfarne) as the support artist and hearing his music for the first time was a folk-music revelation. They had a guest appearance by one of the members of the Incredible String Band and his daughter. As Mr. VP couldn’t attend I was so glad that my friend braved the snow with me. I think it was an eye-opener for her as she hadn’t been to the Sage before.

We met Thea and Rod after the gig and had our CDs signed, before venturing out into the icy-cold Northumberland night. It was truly freezing and snow was carpeting Newcastle. Beautiful but icy.  Once we’d walked across an eerily-quiet, snow-capped Newcastle, we found a place to run around in the snow and took pictures on our camera phones.  It was a truly perfect night.  We drove home, nervously, at 20mph as there were no gritters around and the roads were treacherous.  Never before have I driven on the A1 at 20mph!

Finally we got home and the snow started to fall again.  Falling into bed some time around 12.30am, I didn’t stir until 6.45am.

I have much more to tell you in the following post, so keep visiting in the following days.