Early Christmas Presents & Giveaway Day 9

One thing guaranteed to get me very excited is a parcel with my name on it.

I got a wonderful one at the weekend which I plan on blogging about once the giveaway has ended because I have so many photos from it that the post would go on for ages if I tried to fit it in on a giveaway day.

Then on Tuesday a completely unexpected parcel arrived for me. It was beautifully wrapped (top marks for bow tying by the way!) but I was so eager to find out what it was and who it was from that I was not going to stop and take photos. It turned out it was from Nic - what a superstar she is! Surprise present = happy Alex. Surprise present containing possibly one of the nicest books I've ever been given and some gorgeous other goodies = VERY HAPPY ALEX. I've been leafing through the book this evening playing Fantasy House. My fancy has settled on Great Chalfield Manor. Now I just need to play Fantasy Robbery whilst visiting a few country houses in order to furnish it. Hopefully someone other than me plays this game and decides which piece of furniture they'd most like to take home with them?

I went last year and it is an incredibly beautiful and atmospheric place. One of my friends lent me a series of historical novels by Pamela Belle which are set in a house which is based on this one and that made it even more fascinating to me. I like the fact that even though it's open to the public, people still live there and if you're the nosy type you can have a look in their kitchen window.

Another parcel came yesterday from the very lovely Sarah of SBV, containing these fun filled boxes which I won in her recent giveaway.

I've been eyeing up lots of the stuff on sale in her wonderful etsy shop so was truly thrilled to win all this! I've borrowed the pics she took of the items as her photography skills are far superior to mine and I wanted to show it all off to the best possible advantage because it's so beautiful .

Mine has an A on, not an S but you get the idea...

Hope whoever wins today's giveaway will be as pleased with their prize as I am with mine!

On the ninth day of my giveaway, I will give to thee:

It's a book! Can't believe it's taken till day 9 for me to give a book away. Eva Ibbotson is one of my very favourite authors. She sadly passed away recently so there won't be any more books from her and I feel like I should spread the word about how utterly beautiful her writing is. The book is called A Company of Swans and the plot does feature some ballet (hence why it's the prize for the ladies dancing day of the giveaway) but there's so much more to it. Even if it's not your usual type of book, please give it a try. I'm not sure the tagline on the cover would tempt me if I didn't already know how good it was so the old adage of not judging a book by its cover really does apply here.