A frosty walk...

Pretty chilly here today. I always take the dogs out earlier than usual if there's a frost. My theory is that I slip and slide in the mud a lot less than usual and they come back cleaner. The mud was certainly crunchy under foot this morning.

Riley hasn't worked out what frozen puddles look like. He runs over them like a spider on roller skates. Harvey is clearly more blessed in the brains department.

I love this dogwood growing in a huge clump beside the horse paddocks.

Plenty of mature oak trees too. It's a lovely walk. I've settled for doing the same route most days. It ends with the rinse cycle...

Only today Harvey wasn't that impressed with the temperature and watched Riley run like a mad thing through the water.

Go on, get in, just briefly... Who me? You gotta be kidding.

Is that eau de fox poo? Outta my way.

Quite nice to come back home, make a large mug of tea and dabble with a little crochet. I've made a few 'electronic scrap book' pages using a free app. That was the easy bit, now all I need to do is try the ideas out.

As part of my ongoing 'simplify, declutter and live without things I don't really need plan' I've decided this year to resist all crochet magazines. In fact all magazines. I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at how much they cost last year. I had a subscription to Simply Crochet and a gift subscription to Country Living. The latter is due to run out and I've cancelled the crochet one. I've got a gift subscription to Crochet World, which was a Christmas present so that will be my only magazine this year and it's bi-monthly so that's even better. My theory is that I am more likely to get round to making something from it rather than have an overwhelming choice monthly with the likes of Inside Crochet, Crochet Today, Simply Crochet...

I have of course got a plentiful supply of back copies should I need patterns for particular items. I've already got last years January issues lying around and they feel quite new really, with projects I'd forgotten about.

Which brings me to another resolution for this year; I'd really like to rely less on patterns. I know that I can create my own (my bobble-slippered mice are completely my own pattern) and it would be nice to share some too, though don't hold me to that - I'm still trying to decipher the rough notes I made when I created the mouse.

Meanwhile, another cup of tea I think... in my half finished kitchen, with a background odour of damp dog.