And Kevin came too

Yes, I know, I am totally mad but you see we have this chicken at work called Kevin who is a very well travelled bird and who likes to come on holiday with us, he is well behaved but does like to have his photo taken wherever he goes, so when he found out that DH and I were going on a pre-Christmas break naturally he had to join us....

We went up to Gothenburg, Copenhagen and Hamburg and though the sea was rather rough at times and the temperatures quite low (hence me knitting a hat and scarf for Kevin) we had a thoroughly enjoyable break.

We found a morning long enough to be out in the cold

Copenhagen town

Frozen river in Copenhagen
and returned to the ship for a late lunch and to relax and chill (in the other sense of the word).

I was able to indulge in both reading and knitting without this happening

Hugo knitting
And so I finally managed to finish the Color Affection shawl though it is still awaiting blocking, end darning and photos, make something for a colleague who is shortly going on maternity leave (again to be sewn up) and whipped up a little something to add to DDs Christmas stocking......

Ice scraper mitt
She had been complaining how painfully cold her hand got whilst scraping the car so I created this for her, using an oddment of Drops Eskimo, top down and winging it by way of a pattern. The 'shoulders' are maybe a little wide but I guess that gives wriggle room and should do the job.

We returned just in time to do last minute preparations for the family to descend on Christmas Day which went quite well apart from the lack of Christmas Pud as when I went to turn it out I discovered that my 26 year old slow cooker had given up the ghost, and not cooked it either previously or during the morning. Thank heavens I had made a trifle on the spur of the moment Christmas Eve, though I felt it was quite poignant as not only did my dear departed MIL give me the slow cooker, but she used to make a Christmas Pudding for us every year.

Nevertheless we had an enjoyable day and I received a few knitting related gifts..

the calendar from DH has become a rather nice tradition, the book and yarn I chose and bought for mum and dad to give me! and the enamel mug is for me to take when we go on our long distance walks as the melamine mug I had bought objected to boiling water and cracked on day 1 of our holiday!! and as we are now starting to plan next years expeditions it should come in very handy.