Merry Christmas
Well we’re nearly there. Not quite yet a sitting room ‘Ta Daaa!!’ chez duck but I shall be back with one of those soon enough. We have heat, light (ish), sofas and a woodburner and that’s good enough for me.
I should just like to thank you for your company through this last year. Be it with thoughtful advice, quick witted commentary, the offer of a sticking plaster and a shoulder to cry on, or you being content just to come here and read, you’re always most welcome.
However you celebrate, keep safe and make it a good one.
Jessica x
I have not been very good at keeping up with blogs this year, but wanted to send Christmas blessings from my house to yours. xx
Thanks Jayne. I have been no better and need to make more time next year. It’s so easy to get swept away by the daily grind and before you know it whole months have just disappeared. I’ve never known a year go past so quickly.
I hope you had a relaxing Christmas.
Happy Christmas Jessica .
Thanks Jill. I hope you took it easy!
Have a lovely stress free Christmas Jessica, and enjoy your house in it’s new and beautiful state…or nearly there anyway! I always enjoy reading your posts, and your beautiful photos are a bonus.
Thanks. Hope all is well in Canberra Gerrie and the cooler conditions did arrive.
Sending the best Christmas wishes to you, Jessica, for a wonderful day and a happy healthy and smooth sailing 2020. I have very much enjoyed following your progress this year and look forward to ‘meeting’ next year as well.
Smooth sailing for you both as well. Here’s to less water for Devon in 2020 and more for New South Wales.
Agreed!
🙂
Have a good one yourselves
Too much chocolate but a good long walk to help burn it all off!
Have a good relaxing time, it’s been quite an exhausting year for you so I’m sure you deserve some down time with maybe a glass or two 🍷I have enjoyed seeing the progress of the renovation along with smiles and grimaces. Can’t wait to see your beautiful house and garden next year.
There may have been a glass or two. It’s been a properly exhausting year. Not sure I’d have taken it all on if I’d known quite how exhausting!
Merry Christmas to you and yours, Jessica. Your tree looks lovely – I so want that teddy bear! Hmmm I have Scotty bear with tartan trews somewhere in a box. In fact that is a super cosy-looking photo. And a very happy and trouble-free New Year too. Although one male pheasant here thinks it is spring already – the ladies are not interested and he saunters off rather dejected!
😀
I spotted five male pheasants in the garden this afternoon and, by some miracle, not fighting. Christmas truce?
I cannot visit all the blogs I’d like to as often as I’d like to! A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
There are only so many hours in the day Mike and I too have struggled to keep up this year.
Merry Christmas to you both, have a fabulous time and I look forward to seeing you in the new year – Knightshayes in January perhaps? xxx
Knightshayes sounds excellent! Hope you managed to dodge the showers today.
Merry Christmas, Mrs Duck! It’s been a joy. xx
Likewise!
Jessica, wishing you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful New Year! xxx
Thanks Anna. And a very Happy New Year to you too. Soon be snowdrop time..
Happy Christmas i hope you can both relax and enjoy
Thanks Ann. Lots of relaxing and enjoying done. And a long walk which helps to balance out the relaxing and enjoying!
Merry Christmas to you and your family Jessica.
It is always a pleasure to stop by the Rusty Duck and enjoy your enthusiasm as you renovate your gorgeous home and gardens.
The garden must take precedence next year. It is a shameful sight at the moment! Thanks Linda.
Merry Christmas to the Ducks, and Ptolomy, too.
Thanks Su. Ptolemy turned up with four friends today. Quite a crowd.
Merry Christmas to you too Jessica. Have a wonderfully festive time and may the New Year be merry and bright. X
And the same to you Hannah. Hope all is well in your corner of the world. As wet there as here by all accounts.
Merry Christmas to you both! So lovely to see you are back in your cosy sitting room (even if it’s not quite finished yet)!
It looks rather bare and sounds very echoey. But it’s good to have it back and sitting in it does focus the mind on all the things that still need doing. Target is to get all the soft furnishings done before the gardening season starts again!
Merry Christmas Jessica! I don’t comment on every post, but I have been reading along with all your renovations. You’ve had quite a year.
It has had its moments hasn’t it!
I shall be back to the garden next year and, I hope, with more time to catch up with you and others on the bloggers’ circuit. Hope all’s well in the PNW.
Happy Christmas. Look forward to seeing/reading more of your escapades next year.
Thanks Sue. I just hope we get a better summer next year, I think we can safely say this year was a wash out!
Glad to hear you’re almost there! All the very best to you both, hope you have a good Christmas.xxx
Back to the grindstone tomorrow. But it’s been fun to have the room back for a few days, even if I know the dust sheets are about to return!
Happy Christmas Jessica x
Hope you had a good time Viv. Best wishes for the New Year!
It may not be 100% there but your photo captures a warm and welcoming space. I hope you thoroughly enjoy some good old-fashioned time off with your feet up. Merry Christmas Jessica!
Well we both made it, you more completely than me I suspect. And I hope the same for you as regards the feet up. At least you can relax in the garden too. It’s blowing a gale here with torrential rain. Why am I not surprised.
Happy Christmas to you both!
I hope you’ve had a lovely time Linda, surrounded by the family, and that the weather has been conducive to getting out and about.
Merry Christmas to you.
Hope you’ve had a relaxing Christmas Charles and a glass or several of a very good red.
Merry Christmas, Jessica. I have so enjoyed your blog, as a ten pound Pom, living in NSW, Aust. Since 1966. We left the UK because of the wet weather, but boy would we like some now. All the best for the New Year. Joy
I’ve thought many times about Australia over the last few days, grieving over the destruction and also because this time last year we were there and I so miss it. Despite all the current threats and difficulties I would come back in an instant.
I dearly wish I could bring you some rain. It would appear that our new ‘normal’ will deliver plenty of that.
With best wishes for the New Year. Keep safe Joy.
Hi Jessica,…here I am commenting a second time, firstly lovely to read you wouldn’t mind coming back to Australia, even though the country side is not looking its best at the moment…
…also, at the end of my previous comment, I seem to have clicked the wrong box, and am getting your comments to others as emails…. (should never do anything late at night!) so I’m going to click the second box and get notification of new posts by email.
I would emigrate if only there was a way!
I’m sorry about the problems with the comment box. I wish I could alter it but it seems something that is WordPress standard and not customisable. I’ve also looked to see if I can do anything to amend your subscription at my end, but all I can do is remove you entirely which obviously I don’t want to do! If clicking the second box doesn’t work I can only suggest cancelling your subscription and then re-subscribing.
I’m a little bit late, but still wanted to stop by and wish you both a very Merry Christmas a nd a Happy and Healthy New Year.
Thank you for sharing your lovely home with us, throughout all of the work done and still to be continued, I stand in awe of your talents, and look forward to future visits.
Blessings,
~Jo
Thanks Jo, a happy and healthy New Year to you likewise.
Late to the party, thats normal for me, but wishing you lots of happiness in your new room and look forward to seeing it soon! Hope you Christmas was a happy one. Loving reading your blog, long may it continue! x
The sitting room still feels very bare and un-lived in, plenty more to do in the New Year. It feels as if it will never end! Thank you for your support.
Glad to hear things are coming along. No snow and unusually warm weather for Christmas here. Since we had a cold and snowy autumn I’m not complaining. Here’s hoping that the world sees some positive changes in 2020.
We certainly need some positive changes don’t we.
Continuing mild here too but oh so wet. I’d like to get out and do some clearing up but the soil is sodden.
Always lovely to come here and read even if I don’t comment often.
Thanks Gina. I hope you’ve had a relaxing Christmas after such a busy year!
Merry Christmas and best wishes for the final product ahead. It’s so fun to follow your progress. Happy New Year!
Hi Beth. It will be good to get this one done, it’s gone on far too long. But it does feel odd to have sofas to sit on in the evening again!
Belated Christmas greetings to you both – sometimes I am able to comment, other times not, due to the computer. Now I have a new one sitting in a box awaiting the arrival of my son to do the changeover, & as “sods law” would have it, this one has decided to behave perfectly.
You must be feeling relieved and happy to be nearing the end of your current makeover.
Isn’t it just the way. Computers are a law unto themselves.
Blogger now refuses to let me in if I try to comment on my iPad, it’s fine on a desktop. But as I do most blog reading on the iPad it is severely holding me back. I sympathise with your frustration!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. May 2020 be epic in your garden!!!
Thanks Penny. It sure as heck needs to be!