A PAIR OF SOCKS AT LAST!

As promised here are the socks that I've been knitting, finished this morning while I rest my wonky leg. For a first time effort I'm quite pleased with them, you'll have to take my word for it that they do actually fit.

The wonky leg is beginning to get on my nerves now. I've been hobbling around since February when stupidly for approx 30 minutes I kneeled on Kate's newly tiled ensuite floor to wipe away the excess grouting. Never again!
I had thought things were improving until yesterday when I got carried away and confidently walked through the town to meet a friend for lunch only to find that I returned less confidently dragging the stroppy leg back to the car.
I gave in this morning, rested it, finished my socks and now it does feel alot better.
It's so frustrating, I've got things I want to get done in the garden and it's that time of year when I like to get my spring cleaning into action. Jobs like taking all the light fittings down to evict a whole years worth of spiders and dead flies. No not really, I just tend to try and not look up above eye level, it's easier that way.
The trouble is my mother notices everything!!!!!!!

WEEKEND IN SUSSEX

For Michael's birthday last October the family had arranged for both of us to visit an English vineyard. So, for our first weekend of March we set off down to Sussex, for a guided tour of the Bolney Estate. We're not great English wine drinkers but must say that the time we spent there was very interesting.





Following the talk and the tour we sampled some of their wines and they were surprisingly pleasant. After a ploughman's lunch we left with our free bottle of red and a fairly expensive bottle of sparkling rose, which Michael wasn't convinced was a necessary purchase.


We stayed the weekend in a hotel close to the village of Warburton not far from Littlehampton. We visited this area years ago when my mum's sister lived there. She had moved from Essex to Sussex not many months after the death of her husband in about 1970 and my mum at the time to be honest wasn't best pleased, she just couldn't understand why her only sister would want to move away "at a time like this!"

During our weekend it was nice to revisit some of the places in the area and the following 2 pictures are of Bosham, a little village which surrounds a river inlet, just outside the town of Chichester. The road here often floods at high tide, fortunately for us, not while we were there on Sunday.

It was so peaceful and quiet there. Sunny but cold, we wrapped ourselves up and went for a lovely walk before our journey home.

When I think about my auntie, I have nothing but admiration for her. She wasn't 50 when my uncle died, that's 2 years younger than I am now.
Walking around the lovely little village of Bosham and the other places we visited during the weekend made me realise how brave she was to be able to take off and do something different with her life. She learnt to drive, got a job, made new friends and most importantly maintained her independence.

At the time I thought she was old! How ridiculous is that?

WHAT HAPPENED TO FEBRUARY

February may well be the shortest month of the year but in our house particularly I don't think it actually existed on my calendar for 2010.
28 days that ticked themselves magically away, starting at the beginning with my birthday, midway with Roger's funeral and then finishing with the departure from our house of our daughter and her partner when they finally moved into their new home.
Since Christmas the four of us had lived quite harmoniously under the one roof, despite the chaos and clutter that surrounded us. When they finally took the last of their belongings and I stood in what was their bedroom I felt sad, quite gut wrenching.
However, by the time I'd put a new cover on the mattress, [I had to do that to cover up the stain from the smashed whole bottle of red wine incident], I felt much much better.
So that was February.
Hopefully March will be at a slower pace and I will have some interesting topics to write about, I might even have finished knitting my sock!