This comes to you from a very snowy UK. The picture is from our garden and was in fact taken a few years ago but the scene today is exactly the same.

I thought I’d better post again before December. You may remember that last year I did a daily post of winter music. I will try to get a playlist of the music I recommended ready for your use but it might be a day or two because real life is quite busy at the moment.

I found daily posts quite hard so this year I’ll do some sporadic posts of seasonal cooking. Then I’ll have a seasonal story for you round about the middle of the month.

Meanwhile, I did a couple of memes I ‘stole’ from a friend (the writer smallhobbit).

1. Did you grow up with your parents together as a unit?
Yes until I was sixteen, when my father died. From the age of nine I was at boarding school and only saw them in the holidays and when they visited, once a term.

2. Did you reach adulthood with four living grandparents?

No. My maternal grandfather died before I was born and my maternal grandmother died when I was five. My paternal grandmother died a few weeks after my father when I was sixteen and my paternal grandfather survived until I was twenty.

3. Is your extended family a close one or not?
No. Nor is it very extended. My only uncle died before my mother did, in 2005. I have no first cousins but am still in touch with a second cousin and through her hear other news.

4. Does your family have a ‘black sheep’?

Not in recent history. My father’s surname derived from a lowland Scots group of border raiders, so once upon a time, who knows?

5. What is your first memory of a family member that is not your mother(s) or father(s)?
We lived with my maternal grandmother until I was three and then when my father (a CoE vicar) got his own parish she moved to live with us. So she was part of my life all the time.

6. What was a skill you were proud to learn as a kid?
Not sure I remember, but I do recall being pleased at being a good reader and at learning to read music (my grandmother taught me) at the same time as learning to read.

2. What’s something you used to be good at, but can’t do any more?
PE – cartwheels etc… And singing. I used to be in a choir but I no longer have the same range.

3. What’s something you haven’t done in a long time, but you could pick it right back up again with some practice?
Piano playing. I haven’t done any since I retired because for various reasons my piano is inaccessible.

4. What can you teach others to do?
I was a teacher so all kinds of things including: understanding grammar; various maths skills; how to review or critique something; how poetry works; how to read music. In craft terms etc. tatting, reading music, various papercrafts.

5. What would you like to learn next?
I would like to learn more skills with graphics programs.