Rainbow Week

But none of our days were black.

We had some red - plenty of red wine used in the salami making, loads of shiny ruby red cranberries went into our six jars of cranberry and orange sauce we made yesterday ready for Christmas (but tested today with roast chicken and several set aside for gifts, the rest will go with our hams).

Orange - not just orange, but pinks, yellows and streaks of all colours across the skies every morning for sunrise and every evening for sunset. This time of year we get a breathtaking show twice every day as the sun announces coming and going - a mere six hours apart - each day.

There was yellow - there are gorse flowers still blooming all around the island reminding us that the burst of spring flowers are never that far away.

Green - green shoots on the garlic which I finally managed to get in the ground in a very late cutting it awfully fine for autumn sowing.

Blue, blue skies. I have not had to wear a coat yet, t shirts are the order of the day inside and twice this week have been stripped down to outside too. It is crazily mild for the last week of November and while I am worried about just what the implications of this global warming wise are, I can't help but celebrate every day which is not wet, windy, grey or dismal at this time of year.

Indigo are the night skies - once it is dark it is properly dark. Inky blue skies pricked with stars strewn across them like someone dropped a tub of glitter on a dark carpet. The longer you look up the more you see, like one of those magic eye pictures where the depth just keeps getting more intense. You don't leave the house without a torch at this time of year because you never quite know what might delay you coming home and without a torch you'd be struggling to navigate.

Violet, well okay I'm going to cheat here just because rather than the colour I have been drinking in the taste of violet. Inspired by some delicious liqueurs we had in a cool restaurant in Norwich when we were off on our cob course earlier this year I bought some cinnamon and violet natural flavourings and have been making some gorgeous alcoholic drinks with them. In theory I am testing to check them before I decant some into pretty bottles as festive gifts, in practise I may have to get some more vodka to make more because the bottom of the bottle seems to have come up rather quickly! In my defence I did have help drinking them and we have had many things to be toasting the last week or so.

So, December tomorrow. Christmas is very much coming. We have dug out our decorations and plan to go and find a tree this coming week although it won't go up until next Sunday, as Scarlett's birthday is on Saturday and we don't put the decorations up until after that. But the Christmas cake is feeding nicely with regular drams, the Christmas tunes have been dug out ready to start playing from tomorrow, the cranberry sauce and pickled onions have been made and jarred this week, the Christmas ham is in the freezer awaiting glazing and baking and the Christmas turkey has been identified and is now penned and feeding very regularly.

It's a far cry from the mainland madness I have been hearing about on the news. The times we feel lucky to be stranded way up here far from the crowds and craziness are frequent, this week they have been very often indeed.