A wee New Year Giveaway

Life has been pretty hectic here in these first days of the New Year - feeling a bit like the flock of starlings that live in the few trees we have on the croft - fluttering around madly from one thing to another.

Of course a lot of our time has been taken up with this little lady! She is just so cute and such fun that it is hard to tear ourselves away. But I am not going to say too much about her right now, as I am planning to do a post at the end of each month as we go through the Crofting year.

And we have had a couple of days of feeling not very well too - just enough to stay off school and snuggle on the sofa. Yes - that is the ripple and yes - it is still not completed!  But at least it is now long enough to cover his toes, and, what better for a poorly boy, than to cuddle under a soft cosy handmade blanket - even if it is only half-finished?

Now - despite my neglect of this space over the last few months, I have still managed to clock up 500 posts! I think that calls for a wee celebration, don't you? Sorry it is only a herbal tea there on the table (Pukka nightime blend - very nice), Alongside my latest (secret) crochet project, is a pile of lovely vintage paperbacks. These are a series of semi-autobiographical novels about an English woman moving to a Hebridean island in the 1940s/50s. I remember my parents having these books when I was small, and I thought the titles were most peculiar. The Sea for breakfast? The Hills is lonely?
But then I read them as a young teenager, and immediately wanted to be a crofter!  I admit they are a bit patronising in that "middle class person goes to live with the natives and pokes fun at them sort of way"  but only mildly. They are funny stories of a way of life that has been sadly lost to us. I was in our local and wonderful charity shop a few weeks ago, and just in was this lovely set of old copies, with the covers I remember from my childhood. If course I just had to have them, and thought at the time it would be a lovely giveaway idea.
So, I am, indeed, giving away this set of 5 vintage books by Lilian Beckwith* If you would like a chance to win this set, please just leave a comment below and I will draw a name on 25th January. Just the thing to escape to on these long Winter nights ahead - or long Summer beach days, depending where you might be. And you never know what might happen - maybe I'll bump into you at the sheep dipping :-)

*I am giving away the set as one,rather than splitting them up, because I think you need to read them in chronological order.
Titles are: The Hills is Lonely; The Sea for Breakfast; The Loud Halo: A Rope in Case; Beautiful, Just.`

eta - please don't post anonymously - let us know who you are! I am happy to post worldwide.