Thursday 23 October 2014

PLAY DAY THURSDAY!

It's Thursday and I have a nice day planned ahead of me. I'm looking after my grandson Jack while his mum has a well deserved spa day. After giving him his breakfast I thought I'd start our play day by introducing him to the art of blog writing.  He is sitting on the floor next to me eating his bricks and trying to pull the tail off of his cuddly giraffe while I catch up with my news.

I thought I'd show you this picture first and wonder if you may be thinking I'm dabbling in a new art venture?


But no, not at all. This is all courtesy of our lawn mower on Saturday which must have picked up a stone and threw it with all its force at the patio doors. Not a sound was heard, we only noticed it when I went outside to peg some washing out and to wipe off a self portrait of a pigeon which had arrived on the same doors a few days before.

The window man has been, the glass measured and hopefully all will be back to normal sometime next week.

My parcel has now been opened and all of this yarn is to make Jack a chevron crocheted car seat blanket and you may be thinking that is a lot of balls of wool.


And if you are thinking that, then you are right. I must have had some kind of calculating crisis because I ordered way too much. Fortunately, we have another grandchild on the way, unfortunately we don't know whether it will be a boy or a girl, so colours could be an issue.  I have definitely got enough yarn to make another and possibly another one after that!

I've had more mishaps this week, so I definitely feel I've had my fair share!

I have an american style fridge freezer and yesterday I went to open the freezer and realised the door hadn't closed properly since it had been opened the night before. Normally, the freezer bleeps when the door is left open but it wasn't open far enough for that to happen. We were lucky, the meat had remained frozen and the stuff in the drawers at the bottom were ok too, it was just everything else that was on the soggy side and 2 boxes of liquid ice-cream flowed down the drain a treat!

Mishaps always seem to occur  here when I haven't got a great amount of time to deal with them.
Why this morning when I knew Jack was arriving I had to pop just a few bits in the machine for a quick wash I'll never know but that's what I did and in with those few things popped a hidden tissue of the variety that shreds to pieces. Lovely!

I'm hoping the rest of my day goes smoothly, Jack is now having a nap and I'm going to make myself a coffee. I have a friend calling in in a short while and we're heading off to the tea room by the river for some lunch. As well as teaching Jack the art of blog writing I feel he should also be introduced to the term " the ladies who lunch!"





Saturday 11 October 2014

YARN CRAZY!

Before I start hurtling through my post I must say thank you for all the comments I have been receiving on my blog, they are much appreciated.

I'm so pleased, the chevron blanket that I am making for my daughter is coming along so well. I'm still having an issue with the dark grey blocks as there is definitely not the same length of yarn in a ball as the other colours. However, if I do have to buy some more to finish it then so be it, I'll have to see how it goes.


In the meantime another parcel arrived for me on Thursday and it is still sitting there waiting to be opened. I am being very patient but I know what's inside, it contains all the yarn I need for the christmas gifts I'm making for my grandchildren.


All will be revealed over the coming weeks as I progress through the bag of goodies, keep going with the chevron blanket and dabble with all the yarn projects I bought at Yarndale. Will I be busy? I think so!

Today, the garden beckoned for my attention. Considering I'm usually pottering outside at some point during each week, things have gone a bit wild and the garden has had a serious growth spurt. Although we've had a couple of days here where the temperature has dropped today, it was nice to be outside and when the sun did shine, it was quite warm.

This summer we did grow cucumbers in our green house, got a suprisingly large amount of runner beans from just four plants and finally picked our own courgettes which were definitely very late starters. However, we haven't really had the enthusiasm for growing vegetables this year so have decided we're going to give it a miss for a while. We have an excellent farm shop just up the road and they sell plenty of home grown produce.

So, tomorrow the veg plot is going to be transformed back into a flower bed and there will be lots of spring bulbs and summer colours to look forward to.

I thought I would leave you today with a few more photos from our stay in Yorkshire. Michael took these with his camera and only downloaded them this week. I think they're really good!

Boys do like their steam trains!


Yarndale weekend - Malham!



Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Friday 3 October 2014

WEDNESDAY 1ST OCTOBER 2014

Where was I on this warm and sunny day?


Sandsend Yorkshire!

We'd been staying in Whitby for a few days and walked along the beach on Wednesday from there to Sandsend.
The weather was unbelievable, so many people were out walking and the view from my chair outside a beach side cafe as I sipped my coffee and indulged in a small piece of cake was stunning!

We'd travelled up to Yorkshire first staying in Malham, ready for a weekend of 
Yarndale.


Well, I loved that!
It was such a great event, plenty to see and plenty to buy.
I didn't see my mandela but know it was up there somewhere!


The yarn bombing in the park was excellent too.
My grandchildren joined in at home trying to guess what yarn bombing was and happened to call me on face time while we were in the park.
So, they were very excited to actually see the bikes and decorated lamp posts, although I was told afterwards that it did look at one point as if I was actually talking to the trees.


So what else did we do once we'd headed off for Whitby?


Well, we went on a steam train
(no photos I'm afraid)


walked up and around Whitby Abbey


we drove over the moors 


and walked down to Robin Hoods Bay which is where Kate had her first paddle in the sea at just over 1 year old.
(So a nostalgia trip for us)


Now we're back home


and I have lots of lovely things to look forward to making.
More socks  - ( I must not buy any more sock wool!)
Hats
Dish clothes
and my list goes on.

The brooch is by


I already have one which I really like that was a gift last christmas and I just couldn't resist having another. they're such beautiful colours.

So plenty to keep me busy.

Have a great weekend.