ANOTHER SKY SCARF UPDATE!

Well. it is certainly growing!

I've used so much grey and dark denim yarn recently that I may need to order some more soon. It wasn't until I took on this challenge that I realised how much the sky changes in any one day. I do try and make a note of the sky around lunchtime and that is what I try to knit.

The thicker wad of blue is to remind me of my holiday before Easter in France - wonderful!

I don't think I even need to look out of the window today to find out what the sky is like right now - grey and denim will suit fine.

All day yesterday and all day today so far it has been raining. Yesterday I donned my gardening clothes and went outside to put in some new plants which I bought on Friday while wandering around the garden centre, again it was raining. After I'd finished I thought I would even go round the lawn with the edging shears ready to mow the lawn today - what a joke that is, there's no chance of that happening!!

When I finally headed back indoors yesterday I baked these little raspberry muffins which I intended to warm up again later to have with some raspberry ripple ice-cream for dessert when Jo, Rob and the children came to dinner. Having made a lovely chicken curry I was really cross with myself that I allowed the rice to erupt all over the cooker. I had tried to simmer it on the wok burner but it wasn't the ideal thing to do as I realised far too late. Hence having to rescue the rice and clear up the mess I completely forgot to warm the muffins. I did still serve them up for dessert and they did taste ok but I think they could have been a lot better.

This afternoon I think I'll take root on the sofa, perhaps get my head round watching my 4th episode of The Bridge and get some knitting done.

KNITTING, SWIMMING AND GARDENING

This weekend I was supposed to be showing you a picture of a lovely blue shrug that I've knitted for Charlotte. She loved it and was very eager to wear it to her first disco/birthday party on Friday. It wasn't until she left here wearing it that I remembered I hadn't got round to taking the photo.

I bought the yarn for the shrug from yarn therapy in Chelmsford, it having been recommended by Diane.

This place has some amazing yarns and I've already been back in there during the week to buy wool to knit both Charlotte & Jessica waistcoats. When these are finished I must definitely make sure I take photos.

Meanwhile I've now knitted 15 of the 49 squares for my blanket and very pleased that so far I've managed to stitch them together as I complete each one.

So no knitting projects, instead, I've popped in a picture that I've taken today of an azalea in my garden. It is full of bloom and I'm really pleased, last year it didn't have one single flower. 

Jessica's swimming lesson that I mentioned in my last post went well. Having once been a swimming teacher I know that it isn't the timid child, the crying child or indeed the boisterous child that's the challenge for the teacher but those who accompany them i.e. the grown up, who can sometimes be the nightmare!

Bearing that in mind Mummy, Charlotte, Nanny and Granny were all there in full force to support Jessica.

She, being the tiniest in the group could only be seen by the teacher when she was standing in the water at the pool's edge, waiting her turn. But every time we saw her little arm spring up with her thumbs up sign, we cheered and sung in unison, "well done, Jessica!"

As I said, teacher's nightmare!

But a good result, the teacher was pleased with her and she can start lessons as soon as a space becomes available.

 Today I've been doing some jobs in the garden, though the sun has struggled to shine, the rain has for the most part, managed to stay up in the clouds. I've also planted up 5 little chilli plants that started off growing in a tin which was our christmas gift from Rachel. (This is really remiss of me today, again, no photos!)

Once the plants get going I will post some pictures.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

ALL CHANGE

My daughter in law's hours and days have just changed at work. Now she'll be able to collect Charlotte from school every day and I will only have to look after Jessica on a Tuesday until about 2ish. It's going to be strange not seeing them both on a Wednesday. Swimming, baking, pom pom making and drawing were just some of things we got up to in those couple of hours before Jo came to collect them.

Poor Michael did have words to offer when I told him about the impending change but his "well, at least you've had nearly 6 years!!!!" didn't actually hit the right bar of the comfort stakes in my opinion.
After all, I'm the mother who cried when her daughter announced she wasn't coming on holiday with us anymore and I cried even more, great big bucket loads when my son left home - the first time. Don't worry I was much better the next time he went!

 It was nice to spend time this morning with Jessica. She's not quite 3 but with my guidance, (I thought it best, I didn't want cake mix shooting up all over my newly painted walls) I let her loose with the electric cake whisk and she made these lovely little cakes to take home to share with Charlotte when she gets home from school.

Tomorrow afternoon, I will catch up with Charlotte after all as we're going to go and watch Jessica have her first swimming lesson.

When I asked her about it today she said, "it's not just wimming Granny,  it's a esson and I'm doing it on my oooown!"

She's a very confident little girl where wimmimg, sorry I mean swimming is concerned so I asked her if she was going to show the teacher that she could swim under the water with the fishes.

"Yeh" she said, "with my doddles on!"

Oh bless!

A FEW DAYS AWAY!

Sorry, I've been a little behind keeping my blog up to date. I'm in the scenario where I've plenty to say but not enough time to say it, or should I say write it!

We've been back home a week since we returned from our holiday, seven days in Villefranche sue Mer  in the south of France. Unusually for us we stayed in exactly the same place as we did last September when Michael was recovering from his snapped Achilles tendon injury. 

 This time we were able to get out and see much more of the area, by car and also a lot by foot.

This picture is of Port Darse which is in Villefranche, quite a steep but pleasant walk down from our hotel. In September I wasn't always in the mood for negoitiating driving round the narrow streets that wove up and down through the town wary of the hoots and toots from the local people buzzing around on scooters so we relied heavily on buses and taxis to get us about.

This time it was lovely just to be able to take it in our stride and we thorough enjoyed our walks.

One of the reasons we returned to this area is because we wanted to take the the little train that runs up through the mountains from Nice to Dignes les Bains. We had first noticed this when I drove from Annecy to Nice last year, the track runs partly alongside the road and the river and we guessed that the views would be fantastic. As indeed we found they were!

We decided not to travel all the way to Dignes but to spend a few hours in Entrevaux, a medieval town. Lots of little alleyways to explore, if you do decide to visit, don't go on a Tuesday, some shops and bars are closed, as we found!!!

However after a delicious lunch we decided that we couldn't leave, not that we could have done anyway, we had a 2 hour wait for the train, before walking up to get a closer look at the citadel.

So off we went up there!!

Fairly hard going up and I felt it was harder to come down to be honest but, once up there the views were amazing.
We had a great time that day and throughout the holiday. It was a good choice for us.

Now what do you think of this little old lady?

We spied her in a shop in St Paul de Vence, Michael just had to take a picture of her with me sitting beside her. He thought her to be so amusing, "the knitting granny" that in his haste he pushed the wrong button on the camera and didn't take any picture at all!

So I took this picture with my iPhone to show you, I mean honestly, do I really look like this??

Enough of my holiday, I have another knitting project on the go which I will tell you about in my next post.  My garden and the sunshine is beckoning me now, so hope you all have a wonder Easter!

TINY TEARS' NEW CLOTHES!

Whilst rummaging through my old patterns last week in search of my little green book on how to crochet I came across some dolls clothing knitting patterns that I'd completely forgotten I had.

 2 year old Jessica just loves dolls, calling them all her babies. Her first port of call when she comes here is to head up stairs to collect Tiny Tears but she's always concerned that the poor doll has no knickers!

So I've spent a few days away from my blanket squares and finding some oddments of wool have knitted the doll a new outfit, all finished ready to surprise Jessica when she comes here on Wednesday. 

 I think she looks pretty good for nearly a 50 year old baby!

Unfortunately I didn't find my crochet book but I do have hooks ready and willing. I haven't crochetered for about 30 or so years but I'm looking forward to getting back into it, I just need a refresher on what to do!

Meanwhile the sky blanket continues to grow and grow and I'm pleased that to date I haven't missed a day. 

The garden is now beginning to spring back into life, I love these little dwarf tulips. We've already planted potatoes in containers but in the next couple of weeks we want to crack on with vegetable planting.
I've been a bit lacking on the "planning" this year!

BACK TO BAKING AND MAKING!

This is coconut ice, Charlotte & Jessica's version!

Now we are back to normal in our house and we have a fully functioning kitchen I promised my grand daughters that on their next visit they could make coconut ice. 

I'd been given some neatly sliced, neatly wrapped free samples of this very sweet delicacy back in January when we'd been checking out caterers for my daughters  wedding and when the children tasted it I told them that I used to make it with my mum when I was a little girl.

Charlotte was eager to make it too so I found this Lesley Waters recipe on the BBC good food website and went in search of condensed milk at the supermarket.

When Charlotte came out of school on Wednesday we came back here donned our aprons and the three of us set to with our task of making coconut ice. For the first time, Charlotte had a go at reading the recipe herself and actually it was a good recipe to start off with as it had only three ingredients to measure and three stages in the method. Also it was good because Charlotte could mix the pink together and Jessica the white. The only slight deviation with the recipe came when Charlotte decided that she didn't want the ices one on top of the other, just side by side. But don't all great chefs use their own imagination!!

 It did look a little bumpy, somewhat uneven when it left here and my kitchen looked like a coconut bomb had hit it but the main thing was that the children had a great time making it. 

THE KITCHEN IS FINISHED!

As I said in my last post, spring isn't really here. As I watched the weather forecast last night and it mentioned the S N O W word as a possibility for Sunday evening in the southeast, I thought very rarely does winter leave us without, a sting in its tail!

I wouldn't mind but I've cleaned my boots and put them away and my summer clothes are itching to come out of my wardrobe. I've already seen people during this past week walking down our Hight Street in shorts, tee shirts and sandals. I mean really, has it been warm enough for that?

Enough about the weather, after all we can't do anything about it!

Let's move on to my kitchen.

This week the appliances have all been taken away and put into store. Therefore no cooker, no cooking, no fridge, no fresh food.

 So on Tuesday it was a novelty -  a fish and chip night.
Wednesday night it was a trip to Prezzo's and a pizza to the rescue.
 By Thursday, all I wanted to do was stagnate in front of the tv, the idea of going out yet again was not appealing. I made what I thought would be a quick dash to Tesco's for supplies to put together a salad plus a chilled bottle of white wine, I though we deserved a drink. All I wanted to do was pop in and pop out but oh not so simple. I walked aimlessly up and down the aisles but couldn't find the wine chiller cabinet. A supervisor caught my eye so I asked her to point me in the right direction. Yes, she did confirm that they did indeed sell chilled wine but she also explained that they couldn't possibly have their entire selection of white wine in a chiller.
Ok, perhaps being just helpful and informative but I wasn't expecting a chiller the size of a house!
As our lengthly conversation progressed, I was advised, amongst other things that it would only be from their Finest range. I replied, that was fine with me!
And so the conversation continued!
Have got to say though that by the time we moved on to the fact that I would have to understand that it would cost at least £10 a bottle, I was gripping my small trolley containing my dinner, experiencing great pain in my knuckles.
"That's fine, that's fine" I exclaimed, " but my question again is, where can I find it???"
"Well, by the finest meal deals" she said and as she walked away "we haven't got a chiller solely for wine anymore!"
Now, if any of you can remember that song, "There's a hole in my bucket!" well my conversation in Tesco was along those lines!
By chance the same supervisor was standing by the exit as I was finally leaving to return home. I couldn't resist I'm afraid,( I think it's something to do with my character), my mouth opened and out tumbled, "I found my chilled bottle of white wine thanks and it was only £6.99!"
After  my experience of that exhaustive trip out, I then had to come home, throw my salad onto plates and unscrew the wine. Talk about stress!!!!

Now back to the kitchen.
On Friday, after the two new cupboards were put in place and the flooring laid Michael was able to paint the ceilings and walls and put the tiles up which have been sitting in our garage since October.

We're both so, so pleased that it is finally finished after all the hassle with the people we paid to fit it in the first place. We're also really pleased with the result now that another company and ourselves have put it right. Let's hope that there's no other problems, resulting from the poor workmanship of the company who originally designed, supplied and fitted it, lurking in the background!
Fingers crossed!