Bringing Colour into the New Year!

I thought a swirl of luminous colours might do us all good today!

Now the days are getting longer, one minute at a time.

You would never guess that this abstract was created

from a crocheted piece in warm colours and yellow Christmas lights!

Here are the same lights with my red candle

I do love candles and lights to brighten my home at this time of the year.

This was a pretty sunrise from my balcony one morning

and later on that same day we had blue skies and dappled clouds.

Snug afternoons at home with a cup of tea and a new book to read.

The two lovely packets of tea were given to me by my grandson for Chrisltmas.

A mug of soup 

in a new mug from my daughter,

I'm trying out different recipes from the accompanying recipe book.

I love eating on my Christmas tablecloth too!

I promised myself to do daily walks, whatever the weather.

These tiny cyclamen growing under a big oak tree were a delight to discover.

I rather like early evening walks

and loved these fairy lights along the railings.

Even if the day has been grey, the evenings seem to develop into a lovely

shade of blue if you catch them just at the right moment

after sunset in what is known as the Blue Hour.

These pine branches were particularly lovely.

Back home again to enjoy some candlelight.

This pretty jam-jar lantern was made by my grandson when he was little.

We always used to do crafting together and had pressed some leaves

in my flower press to use them with coloured tissue paper. 

The photo of my grandson was in my nearby park when he was a baby.

I have left my scintillating Christmas cloth on the small table because it makes me happy!

On January 1st, I baked some Florentine biscuits with flaked almonds

brushed with chocolate and flavoured with grated orange rind.

I also opened a bottle of Clairette de Die

which is made from Muscat grapes and very bubbly, like champagne.

 My second Amaryllis plant came into bloom.

There were five huge blooms which lasted over a week.

I protected my plants on the balcony with pine branches

and this tiny yellow viola popped out through a little space one morning.

We did have a light snowfall in the night leading up to the first day of January.

So I took my little gnome and red mug for a walk to add some colour.

I rather liked this snowman which some children had built.

He's sitting on the very same table where we had our Christmas Eve

get-together to exchange Christmas gifts.

See us HERE

The snow started to melt quite quickly, but it looked perfect on the branches

with red berries.

One week ago, I bought some red tulips

and today I took a photo of them looking very beautiful still.

So despite the rather grey days we've been having

and cold temperatures too, around 1-2C  (33.8 Fahrenheit),

I've been enjoying lots of colour in my home.

One last swirl of colour, this time in blue.

Colour is so therapeutic, don't you agree?