Flowers in the allotment

Another Green Day with Fiona @ Raindrops and Daisies! Have a look at all the other lovely blogs taking part.

Here are a few snapshots of our increasingly abandoned allotment... the girls are both starting school and nursery next week so I'm hoping I might be able to get out there and start getting it into some kind of order for winter - maybe even make some Autumn sowings, who knows?? 

So far, my little herb patch has been overtaken by the mallow and cleomes I sowed in Spring, but that's fine, because hopefully these little baby thymes and pot marjoram will take their place when they've finished. My dream of having a little plot of fragrance may yet be realised! The lavender hidden amongst them is now two years old and is thriving, soon to be joined by more sown this year.

This year's veg was a complete failure because of the proliferation of slugs in all the rain we've had, they ate EVERYTHING!!! So I'm not sure whether to sow anything this Autumn or just hope for a drier season next year.

The girls love their knackered old trampoline! Behind them you can see the makings of a greenhouse out of old windows Jude's been s l o w l y working on for a friend. Another project thwarted by the rain!

Happy weekending!!

x

Giant chicken alert!

Recently there was a story broadcast on national radio regarding a lion on the rampage through deepest darkest Essex. 

Seeing as the lion is not native to the British Isles, a massive operation was set in motion involving armed officers and two police helicopters using heat-seeking equipment and nearby caravanners were evacuated for safety.

Turned out the savage beast was a fluffy tomcat called Teddy Bear.

The wife of the man who reported the sighting quietly admitted that the cat was "quite far away".

A case of mistaken perspective...

:-D

Yesterday in Rame

Jude had a day off work yesterday so we made the most of it and went out for a picnic :-) 

I'm glad we did, as it hasn't stopped raining here today!

We drove quite randomly and ended up in Rame.

Tula didn't think much of her strawberry after all!

Have a great weekend! x

Linking up with Green Day at Raindrops and Daisies :-)

  

A quiet day

Still knitting the white afghan for Granny; only two more strips to go before I start sewing it together! I haven't quite worked out how I will block each strip before I sew them: perhaps they will be pinned to the sofa overnight...

Reading 'The Blind Assassin' by Margaret Atwood - easily one of the best books I've read lately: unsurprisingly it was the Booker Prizewinner in 2000. Slightly disconcertingly there is a very piercing portrait of the author inside the front cover which catches you by surprise every now and then: she looks very nice, but slightly challenging, as if daring you to find fault with her words.

Baking bread. We've run out of store-bought so I've got the bread-maker going: it makes a very reassuring noise in the kitchen which is quite comforting on a grey & wet day. Plus freshly baked bread is clearly a winner on any day.

Slightly belatedly joining the yarn along at Small Things :-)

A little mending & return to Eden

Another sunny visit to the beautiful Eden Project!

It's such a wonderful place any time of year, but particularly so with all the flowers in full bloom! There is always lots for kids to do too; this visit included the making of a beautifully decorated moustache for each of the girls, inspired by the Lorax. Luckily my sister who has been staying with us for a few days was able to help out which made everything much easier!

Not long ago I mentioned I was mending an old chair the children use, and here is a pic of the finished patch

More of Milly's long-armed stick figures on the etch-a-sketch in the background - a recent charity shop find!

Pretty soon it'll need some more mending, but I'm pleased with my first efforts! I think the chair was made in the 60's and it was in fairly good condition when we rescued it from a skip, but with much use the fabric has started to shred in a few places, the worst being the edge of the seat which had stuffing spilling out of it. The material I chose at random (it almost chose itself as it just happened to be lying around nearby, freed from my stash for some reason) but works quite well as the leaves echo the pattern of the original fabric.

Another recent charity shop find was two hand-crocheted blankets for the bargain price of £1.50, one of which has several moth-holes in which I thought I must be able to do something with. I actually spotted them in a bag as they'd just been brought in and not even priced up yet, and very cheekily asked to see them! I'm glad I did as the holey one would probably have been rejected for sale otherwise.

the good one!

not so good!

I've started by just trying to darn the holes, but it looks pretty crappy - my darning skills are not my strength :-) Then I thought perhaps I might continue darning anyway, but embellish the patches somehow, maybe with a little embroidery. Whatever I do, I want it to look mended: it's important to me that the mending becomes part of the story of this blanket - that's why I chose such an obviously different wool, actually three colours entwined to echo the different mixed threads of the original crochet. Progress report to follow....

"We'll still love you Mum even if you can't darn for toffee!"

Happy Thursday y'all xx

♥ Liebster award! ♥

I'm ridiculously thrilled to have been nominated for a Liebster Award!!! 

Thank you Olympia for nominating me :-)

According to the rules I have to tell you 11 things about myself and nominate another 11 blogs which each have under 200 followers so......

1. Reading Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, the Crossing, Cities of the Plain) made me cry.
2. I suffer from vertigo to the extent that even ladders frighten me.... conversely, I LOVE air travel: being in a plane, particularly in turbulence, is thrilling!
3. Almost everything I own is second-hand: Sunday morning carbooting with a purse full of coins is one of my greatest pleasures.
4. Champagne is my favourite drink, but I very rarely get the chance to drink it! At the moment I have to make do with home-made Elderflower bubbly ;-)
5. I took my driving test three times before I passed... my instructor was so frustrated by my nerves letting me down when he knew I could do better he even paid for one test himself! (I failed)
6. My dream job would be to travel the world taking landscape photos with a really flashy camera: the best country I've visited so far has to be Morocco, for its' beautiful architecture and scenery. 
7. I used to smoke, despite being hospitalised twice with asthma... I quit when I was pregnant with my eldest daughter and haven't touched a ciggy since.
8. I used to collect rust. The Welsh coast around Cardiff was a particularly rich source of rusty old junk, which was useful when I studied there as I used it to make collages and scanned bits of it to turn into prints.
9. I used to regularly win the competition at my junior school designing the poster advertising the annual school fair: the prize was always a book token. One book I remember buying with this token was 'The Rats of NIMH'.
10. My mum died when I was two. She was only 27. Oddly this is the age that a number of musicians have died including my hero Jimi Hendrix along with Kurt Cobain, Robert Johnson, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and the artist Jean-Paul Basquiat, amongst others. They are popularly known as 'The 27 Club'.
11. I can't swim. The only thing I can do in the water is the 'Trying Not To Drown' stroke. It's very inelegant.

Phew! And now for the blogs I'd like to nominate:

1. Gracie at Grace and Mending
2. Hoola Tallulah
3. Susan Christiansen at Flying Dog Studio Design
4. Nicole at Verde Mama
5. Dee Mallon at Dee Mallon and Cloth Company
6. Amy Woodruff at Daughter of the Sun
7. Little Dotty Bird
8. Tiny Woolf
9. Peggy at Woman with Wings
10. Norma at The FairyyellowbugQueen
11. Deborah Purdy at While I Was Waiting

I think I need a little lie down now.

 ♥

Mellow Yellow Monday

Lawns shouldn't be just boring old grass, the more flowers the better! 

My first attempts at giraffe face-painting!

One satisfied customer!

Never too early to help Mum with her knitting projects

Quick taste test

And voila! 

No I can't tell what it is, either!

Today I'm joining up with Mellow Yellow Monday

There are lots of other gorgeous yellow pics to go and see!

xXx

Woodland walk on a wet day

Lovely morning walk despite the endlessly grey skies. 

Seems like a long time since I was among trees. All the colours are so vivid after rain, the blackness of the branches like strange hieroglyphs against the leaves and moss hugged trunks. 

Then we stopped for food on the way back, and the sun shone brilliantly again while we ate! Magic.

Have a good week x