Christmas - a little early perhaps?

possibly but most of the shops have trees up! i like the decoration on the stairs but i have to confess to not really being a fan of pink!

The photo isn't quite accurate Sticki - everything was pale mauve to match one of the colours in the carpet!!! It wouldn't have been my choice but it seemed to work there!

i imagined it was matched to a theme, did you have a nice week? i was in Ambleside in March, loved it!

Pretty, but it is a bit early. Too early can make people bored with it all by the time the Xmas season comes along ....& it must seem like a lifetime to wait for young excited children.

There's a house across the way from here, and they always put Christmas lights in the window, on the day after Guy Fawkes night :o( Much too early. I think like Dwyllis, it becomes boring if you start it too early.

Ullswater in Autumn sounds simply lovely if the weather is kind, but Christmas decorations? No thank you! What a turn-off. We are very lucky to live in a place where where no-one much even thinks about Christmas until the first week in December, and quite a lot of families only get out the tree and a deflated balcony-climbing Santa (not very many chimneys in apartment blocks) in the last few days before Christmas day itself. The massive August/September start hype just doesn't happen. I couldn't believe it in late September when I left sunbathing weather to come back to the UK and found every shop swathed in tinsel and fake snow. Weird!

Someone worked hard with all those decorations. Maybe in December, staff would be too busy to decorate the hotel. Looks a lovely place to stay :o)

Yes maybe too early, I think it's autumn don't you? Then again it's an hotel so like Tt says, they may not have the time in December.......and it does look pretty....:))

I quite like that colour scheme,if it matches the carpets..and yes,a tad early,but welcoming :o) It looks to be a nice Hotel,Chris..we have only ever passed through Ullswater,so would you recommend it ,if we ever decided to stay there?..

Really liked all these comments and I seem to be sitting on the fence over it.
I didn't like to see the decorations when we first arrived but as the weather was so dull and gloomy they did give a cheery and welcoming feel to the hotel and they had been done so nicely and they hadn't gone 'over the top!'

Yes there were only 2 here but 3 were used in another part of the entrance hall. It as all very effective.
We did go for walks but as I had just been to see the twins the walks were neither long nor energetic!!!

Far, far too early!! I've been shaking my head in the stores for weeks now!!
Glad you had a great time :)

Much, much too early! The excitement of Christmas would soon wear off! I never put ours up until 2 or 3 weeks before Christmas.

Far too early I think. The first week in December is soon enough for me!!

I decorate our tree on the 12th December as it is John's birthday and that is soon enough for me!

Bloomer -Ullswater is my favourite lake and the area nearby is really lovely. You can have a good boat trip on the lake from Glenridding to Pooley Bridge which has a wonderful tea-room with delicious ginger bread!

In NZ the shops start putting up their decorations in late October, which I think is too early. I'd like to see them wait until late November at least. But I guess they all want people to start spending money for Xmas early.

Sounds pretty good to me,Chris..What is the name of the Hotel,please ?

It was 'The Inn on the Lake' at Glenridding, Ullswater. They do lots of offers throughout the winter and early spring. We have booked to return next March. Couldn't fault it.

That's quite funny Chris . . . my husband "does" the tree on MY birthday (19th Dec): quite soon enough! I do love pretty lights and we keep it simple - white and red.

Thank you,Chris..and I will google it to have a good nosey .:o)

To early I think but then hotels are different their aim is to make customers feel warm and cosy this does exactly that on a cold foggy wet day !

I love decorations, and the run up to Christmas, but I do prefer to wait until Advent. Having said that, it does look very pretty!

Pretty but....................aaaaaaaaaggggggrrrrrrrrhhhh!!

As it is in the Hotel I could live with that, but would not do it at home, just a tad too early......pleased you enjoyed your holiday, my husband spent many hours around lake Ullswater when he used to stay at Sharrow Bay.

None of you is ever going to speak to me again, but, inspired by this blog( honest!) I have all my Christmas presents (including those I've bought on behalf of my OH 'cos he's pants at that sort of thing) bought, wrapped, labelled and hidden. Let's hope no-one makes any last-minute requests. We do simplify things every year though, giving a personal limit of €50, which doesn't penalise the hard-up and gives us all a challenge. We don't, by mutual agreement, buy presents for anyone outside the immediate family (unless we have a guest(s) who joins us for Christmas day) and anyone who wants anything more expensive buys it for him/herself in the January sales. Ingenuity and pretty wrapping rules! Although the tree goes up a week or so before Christmas day, we don't decorate it until all of us are there, then we light the fire, put carols on the cd player, light candles, warm up the mince pies and the spiced or ginger wine and make it a family affair. Things like pinning the cards to the beams and decorating the mantlepiece and lamps and beams and doing flower arrangements are done when yours truly has a spare moment, a ladder, a hammer and a cuppa tea, and there's no-one else to get in the way (OOPS! Sorry, that should read "help").
Smug? Moi? Perish the thought. Off to do the cards now. ;o)

Ditto,Gattina..:o) I have sent you a PM .xx

Actually Gatt. I have done the same, lots of pressies purchased and in their bags and hidden, but I am thinking now that i will not send cards anymore only a few to those we dont ever see and to the ones we do, well we can say it with words!! :)

I have kept to my word about some cards too,G.mage..and we can all wish each other Season's Greetings via Goy .:o) .I think a lot more people are doing the same this year ..

Think we spent more than £45... on stamps alone last year, silly money + buying cards too. Our new grandson will be arriving this week(ish) too so another little one in the family, (our son this time) oh so exciting.We have a monthly plan for the grandchildren so now there will be one more!!!

My goodness,G.mage..that is a lot of money on postage !
Oh,how lovely to be welcoming another grandson into your family..:o) ..such a lot to look forward to..and to spend on ! Lol.

Don't mention the postage! I spent over £50 last week on stamps, and only seven of those were for abroad . . .

but . . . our family and friends spend Very Little on gifts: we do quizzes for each other, and buy small(ish) things to give as prizes.

I'm impressed Gattina - but if I did that I'd probably forget where I'd hidden the pesky things :))

Lol Sheila, that is why I have my little blue book and I write down in there what I have purchased and for whom, have done this for years now. :)

Gattina - an admission after my own heart! OH always did all the Christmas shopping, he wrapped and labelled everything, then did the decorations - mostly made by him. (Now that I am retired, I do my share, natch) He is the original Christmas nut. We are just about finished now. Oh - NOT the decorating! We just find it makes Christmas week so much more fun, and we can concentrate on the entertaining (cooking in my case..which I enjoy). I do have to confess to - very occasionally - giving out forgotten stocking fillers as Easter presents, though, when the children were little.

When I knew that everything I'd ordered had arrived and my list was complete, Sheila, I got out the wrapping paper, ribbons and sellotape, and then had a terrible time remembering where I'd hidden things I'd bought a few months back. You should have seen the mess I made with frantic scrabblings when I was looking in drawers and cupboards and the loft for the tiny packages, and hoping I hadn't managed to throw things away with old paper bags without noticing. Got there in the end. Senility is a dreadful thing, especially when you're trying to convince yourself that you haven't got it. :o(

Lol Gattina! Now I feel a lot better :)))

I'm so pleased, Sheila :o) My next problem is remembering which of the 9 cakes and puddings I've got lined up in the cupboard are the gluten-free ones. I THINK I remember, but guess who didn't label them. :o(I may have to make some more just to be on the safe side - getting it wrong doesn't bear thinking about.

The things you get up to when you can't be in the garden! Good grief . . . 9 cakes and puddings; I desperately hope you won't have to make any more :(

Actually, Sheila, I quite enjoy making cakes, as long as I can get hold of the appropriate ingredients (not as easy as you might think in a country with different culinary traditions - we have to import all our muscovado sugar, for example) A warm kitchen, radio 4 and spicy, fruity flavours in the air and some gentle exercise with the wooden spoon is a pleasant way to spend a rainy afternoon. We never ice our cakes these days, and a good, solid, fruit and alcohol-rich cake only improves with keeping, so we could be eating yummy fruitcake well into next summer!

Mmmm . . . I can smell 'em from here!

The smell of a Christmas cake in the oven is one of the best smells ever isn't it?

Favourite smells anyone, I'd love to know what they are. I also like wood smoke, freesias and bees wax polish.

Newly cut grass,walking past a chippy when you're hungry..just bathed babies,and like you Chris,Bees wax polish..I have no idea what Freesias smell like,as I'm one of those odd bods that can't smell them ! :o)

Definitely wood smoke, Chris; and fresh coffee, baking scones, sea air (ozone or seaweed?!), freshly mown grass, sweet peas, and babies!

I love fresh coffee too and yes, Johnson's baby powder! We had smoked haddock tonight - a smell I definitely hate!!!

Monsoon soil, chocolate and the salty sea!

Oh definitely! Cut grass and beeswax: woodsmoke goes without saying.

Mona, is the monsoon soil a wonderful smell of wet earth and freshness all around?
I too love the smell of chocolate - not just the smell of it though!!!

Isn't that strange, Wildrose - I hate the taste of coffee, but LOVE the smell of it, hate the smell of chocolate and chocolate ice cream, but would kill for a bar of Cadbury's dairy milk.

Yes, you are right Wildrose but it is not just that, the pleasant musty aroma is actually produced due to the oily secretion 'geosmin', by some Actinomycetes :)