MAY SKY SCARF PROGRESS!

Guess where I am?

Yes, for the first time since starting the sky scarf I've knitted today's two rows of sky while sitting in the garden.

Could it get any better?

Well yes I think it could. Beautiful weather for the past few days we may well be experiencing but though I think I'm probably chancing my arm to ask for a few more weeks at least, can we have just a few more days of this glorious sunshine.

And my request is not just because I have an abundance of blue wool in my knitting bag either!

So yesterday, I did some potting on!!

(Chilli's, cucumbers, tomatoes and courgettes)

Later in the afternoon Jo, Rob and the children came round for a BBQ and despite Rob telling us that he was on a diet, they still managed with our help to devour this chocolate swiss roll I made filled with double cream, raspberries and strawberries!

Yummy!!

Then for the rest of the evening my grown up son played with the lego that I had retrieved from the loft last weekend. Some of it mine, so probably about 45 years old and his own which we must have had for at least 20 years, if not more.

So, the soon to be 29 year old played while Charlotte not quite 6 arranged the finished projects on a dark background and put her photographical skills to good use!

Strange world!!

IS SUMMER ON ITS WAY AT LAST?

I'm sitting here this morning with the window open to hazy sunshine, the birds are singing and at long last, it is WARM!

Could it really mean that summer is on the doorstep, I really hope so. I'm sick and tired of still succumbing to turning the heating on in the evenings. It was lovely last night, we didn't close our patio door until gone 9pm and Michael even had to go out and water our vegetable garden as it dawned on us that we hadn't had any rain for a few days.

These are some pictures taken when we were out and about at the weekend.

Saturday evening at Wivenhoe, Essex

Sunday in Whitstable, Kent

Sunday in Herne Bay, Kent

AND this little book,

I have had for absolute years [as you can tell from the price!] but, thought I'd lost it!
On Saturday morning, while Michael was out helping our son build his garage/shed I had a choice of two jobs to keep me occupied, garden or loft. I chose the loft!
It is fairly organised up there, since I took it over as part of my domain and organised it! We do however seem to hang on to things that we really have no further use for, so up I went to have a rummage.
In a suitcase that contains some oddments of wool, a half finished jumper from the 1990"s, some odd knitting needles, a few postcards from America that my parents sent in the 1980"s, I found, right at the bottom my crochet stitches book. I have been looking for this everywhere, so I was really pleased! Now, I have everything in place to get back into crotchet.
I also managed to collect a black sack of rubbish for the dustman and a few items that may well find themselves on ebay in the coming few days.
After my descent, feeling pretty grubby and with a veil of cobwebs, I was still able to get out in the fresh air and do some gardening as well. Two great achievements for one Saturday morning, result!

THE BLANKET CONTINUES TO GROW

I've seemed to have put on a bit of a spurt with my blanket this week. I must say I'm not very good with my time management when I've got more than one knitting project on the go and knitting a waistcoat for Jessica, plus having the yarn ready to knit one for Charlotte has pushed the blanket to the end of the list. But when I went to the wardrobe in the spare room last week and saw the large bag containing the large amount of yarn that cost me a considerable sum of money, I thought I really must get on with this before I find I haven't quite got enough yarn and in view of the time its taken for me to knit it up, it's been discontinued. 

I've now completed 3 out of the 7 panels and have plenty of sewing planned for this afternoon.

As promised, here is a photo of the little chilli plants that I grew from a tin, a christmas present from my god daughter Rachel. One seems to be struggling a little but I'm ever hopeful and the others are doing so well in my little greenhouse. With some sunshine and TLC they should grow quite quickly now.

We have in fact experienced some sunshine today and indeed yesterday. Are things brightening up at long last? This clematis is bursting out in flower in our garden. I just hope the rain and wind doesn't come along and give it a battering!

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend too!

A BIT OF A PAVLOVA!

It was Kate's birthday on Wednesday and I prepared dinner for us all to celebrate. A quick and easy lasagne for main course, or so I thought. I have an old and trusted friend when it comes to making white sauces, my old and battered Tefal Saucier, it never falters!!!!

Until yesterday!

Would the sauce thicken, no it wouldn't. I added extra cornflour, flour, it made no difference. I decided that perhaps the Saucier had come to the end of it's life so I wrapped my hands round it to see if there was any heat in the poor old girl and found very quickly that it was indeed very hot. Ouch!!

Out came a saucepan and as soon as I'd put it on the gas the sauce became thicker and thicker and thicker so I added more milk and even more milk. You guessed it, it didn't manage to thin the sauce.

So my quick and easy lasagne ended up with lots of blobs of sauce over the top, covered by a heavy disguise/garnish of grated mozzarella.

It cooked nicely though and tasted lovely!

Thankfully the dessert wasn't as stressful and was gorgeous!

I'm also very pleased to have received this award from Miriam this week.

The Liebster Award is a blog award, which apparently originated in Germany, to showcase bloggers with fewer than 200 followers.  Upon accepting the award the recipient must then pass it on to five more blogs of note, which is a wonderful way of introducing bloggers to your own favourite blogs.

The Liebster Convention says you must:-

1. Thank your award presenter on your blog and link back to him/her;

2. Copy and paste the award to your blog;

3. Present the Liebster Award to 5 blogs (with less than 200 followers) that you love;

4. Leave a comment on their blog to let them know;

5. Have faith that those award winners will spread the blog love.

I now get to pass this award onto five other blogs that I read and enjoy, easy I thought, but I discovered it's not as easy as you might think. The problems I found are not all bloggers publish their followers and a rule of this award is the blog has to have under 200 followers. I wish I could give all the blogs I read an award you all deserve one but here are my five;


Diane Dianehobbit
Katie M Katie yarngarden
Hawthorn 11am
Snoopydog Snoopydogknits


And 1 to follow!