I collected a box of lovely tender Ginger bacon but the rest of the meat was not on the premises so the butcher promised yet again that he would drop it off “sometime”.

The one good thing about it being December is that I feel you can officially eat mince pies and drink a small sherry with friends at coffee time. We don’t tend to do this during the rest of the year so it’s quite a treat! I arrived for my coffee at Mo’s in a more dishevelled state than usual. I told her that I had been foraging and had something in the back of the Landy. She made a comment that most people forage for berries or wild mushrooms and don’t usually appear with a large deer.

That morning the dogs headed into the gorse 2 fields away from the house and started barking. I found them having a go at a wounded deer that had struggled up from the road with both of its front legs broken. I decided to take the dogs home and return to put it out of its misery. The sloping ground was so wet that I couldn’t drive the Landy up, remembering the poachers who got stuck on a neighbouring farm last week. Armed with a Stanley knife, I thought that if I cut its throat, it would die quickly. This is where TV gives a totally false impression of events. The deer seemed to cling onto life for quite a while with its big Bambi eyes looking accusingly at me. Rather than leave the carcass to the mercy of predators, I decided that Mo and I could make use of some nice venison so I pulled it out of the bushes where it turned out to be larger than I first thought. I planned to carry it across my shoulders like a gamekeeper but it was too big so I had to drag it back home which was heavy going. Surreal thoughts went through my mind - like if you ever murdered someone it would be VERY difficult to move the body!

It was a week of unusual happenings, actually. When I was driving back from Banchory on the back road one evening a huge cat shot across the road. It was the size of a fox, stripy, with tufted ears and a lynxy tail. There have been several sightings of Scottish Wildcats in our area and this was most certainly one of those.

I had an argument with receptionist at the Hairdresser. She told me that I did not have an appointment on Tuesday but I was insistent that there was a note on my fridge to the contrary. When I got home I shamefully admitted to myself that I had missed an appointment in November. This was the second time I have done that this year!

I received an email from “Road to California” to inform me that LSD has been juried into their January quilt show.

I will not be going to see it in person but decided that I will send it on from there to MQX as it will already be in the USA. I went to the Post Office to buy a parcel box but was told that they had been flooded a few weeks previously and the stock of boxes had all got wet and spoiled. This reminded me of customer services in Bethlehem 2000 years ago when local hoteliers all knew a large census event was taking place but they didn’t plan ahead and ended up with “No room at the Inn!”

I got dressed up in my new frock and shoes to accompany my husband to a posh work do. It was an absolutely fabulous carol concert in the Chapel at Haddo House. It is National Trust Scotland property decorated lavishly in 18^th Century style and crammed with enormous old portraits. It was also unheated apart from a few log fires so visits to the loo were kept brief. Champagne and canapés were followed by a sumptuous dinner in the library. It actually put me in the Christmas spirit and I have had to stop denying that the proverbial goose is getting fat.

The coming week is going to disappear… Mo wants me to squeeze in a bedspread, 2 sets of friends want to go out for lunch, I want to try and get to grips with the new laptop which won’t communicate with the existing modem and there is a fair bit of clearing up to do in my workshop. The messy stuff is almost done so I will have to repaint the walls and floor, hang new calico from the ceiling, wash everything down and put everything back. Finally, I will be able to use it as a proper studio again. I am organising my first APQS training session at the end of January when a technical expert from USA comes to stay. I also have a fairly large project to attend to!