Bath Christmas Market and other seasonal preparations

Festive sewing

Well, I think my Christmas sewing is now complete...another Ellen Mouse heading to a new home and a couple of fabric Christmas trees with beading 'tinsel'. I really love the amazing buttons you can get these days - the Christmas lights in particular are brilliant. I just bought a few more (cats, birds, chickens, trees etc) from Textile Garden, which has a fantastic selection.

 

Ellen Mouse

 These trees are so simple to make, I can see myself making quite a number next year!

fabric christmas trees

Christmas is coming...advent traditions

Preparations are moving full steam ahead. Our concert is only 2 weeks away (tickets available from Bath Box Office if anyone is local and fancies a really good Christmas concert), and the Christmas music we rehearse every Saturday morning really puts me in the Christmas spirit. I stopped off at the supermarket to pick up ingredients for mulling syrup to pop in with Christmas presents and for panettone. I have 'seasoned' a few flower pots so I can bake the panettone in them and now the house smells of fresh bread and dried fruit. I'll get my work colleagues to be guinea pigs and try the panettone before I make it as gift.

The other clue to the season is the appearance of Mark's advent train. Liqueur chocolates and a few surprises hide in the wooden drawers. I also have a woodland advent calendar from (architect) Karen - we always send each other an advent calendar, and the one she has sent this year is a box designed to have a candle lit in the middle, so the light can shine through the images in the windows. It is so pretty!

Mark's wooden advent train

Bath Christmas Market 2012

I like to go to the Bath Christmas market every year. For me it has somewhat lost the excitement of the first time I went, but it is still lovely. Although I didn't need to buy anything, Mark and I walked in to the city centre on Friday evening so I could take photos of the market at night, when you can really appreciate the lights. It was very cold, but the exercise was good for us and the city did look really pretty. 

Bath Christmas lights

Bath Christmas market and lights

I love a carousel!

I think the green lighting really sets off the shooting stars - well done Bath!

Bath shooting stars

The delicately lit Bath Abbey looms over the market, reminding everyone of where they are (and what Christmas is really about) - it looks gert posh too!

Bath abbey and market

This beading shop, Bijoux Beads, is a favourite of mine and the windows are always so beautifully decorated.

Bijoux Beads, Bath

Abbey Green always looks lovely with the tree in the middle and really suits the market stalls.

Bath, Abbey Green

I love disco balls - I am a real magpie when it comes to anything sparkly - and it works wonderfully under this archway.

disco ball archway, AbbeyGreen

I don't know how well it shows up, but "Bath Christmas Market" was projected on to the wall here above the market stalls.

Bath Christmas market

Bath Christmas market

Outside the Roman Baths and Pump Room is a huge Christmas tree - the lights include starburst effects that looked great, but I couldn't catch with my camera.

Bath Christmas tree

Bath Guild Hall Market opens all year round, but has a sort of extension during the Christmas market. We were surprised to see the queen at the pie stall!

Of course it shouldn't really have been a surprise; after all Barack Obama was propping up the bar at the American diner (with George Clooney just out of shot).

Mark and I walked home via Pultney Street - Pultney Bridge is Robert Adam's nod to the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and the Ponte di Rialto in Venice, and very fine it is too.

Pultney Bridge, Bath

We were so good resisting all the tempting food at the market - lots of local, organic food, my favourite chou chou caramelised nuts and even the lovely bakery on Pultney Street (I didn't realise it would be open so late!). Well ok I did have a taster of the Snowdonia Cheese Company amber mist cheese (laced with whiskey!), but in previous (non diet) years we bought three of the cheeses and scoffed the lot, so just having a tiny taster really was showing self-restraint!

and finally: hyacinth cam day 22

Isn't it odd how the hyacinth seems to be almost all roots with very small shoots, whereas the crocus started the same day have hardly any roots, but healthy looking shoots!

hyacinth day 22