Hello again! I hope you had a lovely Easter. Over our two week school break we kept busy with wood walks and lots of garden days, especially in the middle of last week when we had a few days of distinctly summery weather – hopefully there will be a lot more of that to come!

The Easter egg that I was most eagerly anticipating did not arrive for Easter but appeared a week and a half later on April 15th…

That was when the first chicken egg was laid, with the second two eggs following the next day. The first two eggs are tiny and I'm not sure which of our girls to congratulate and give extra treats to as both eggs were laid in the early morning. The third egg was larger (though still on the small side compared to a shop bought egg) and was definitely laid by Hattie, as she went into the nest box during the day and after she came out there was a lovely warm speckled egg sat in the straw.

So our girls are ladies now :)  They have learnt to scratch in the dirt, to come when I rattle the little jar of corn they get each afternoon, to let me pick them up for inspection and a quick cuddle and they are old hands wings now at bed-time ladder climbing. They do make me smile and I've really been enjoying their antics…

The first egg may not have arrived in time for Easter day but I did get a lovely Easter present, The New Kitchen Garden by Mark Diacono. The fact that I bought it for myself (because around here it's only the children who get visited by the Easter bunny) doesn't diminish my enjoyment of it – it's a great book, beautifully laid out and it has all the information I need to make the most of our little veg patch.

I've already made a start with nasturtiums, courgette seedlings (which are desperate for bigger pots) and my kuri squash seeds are just about breaking through the surface of their compost. In the garden I've planted out kale, broccoli, cabbage and some lettuces too and I've direct sown spring onions, beetroot, mangetout peas and dwarf french beans. Fingers crossed we've got no more frosts to come.

Around the rest of the garden everything is sprouting and it seems that overnight the plum tree has gone from frothy white with blossom to bright spring green as the first leaves open out.

I love this tiny shoot coming directly out of the gnarly bark – it perfectly illustrates the magic that is all around at Spring-time

as do these small shoots of sweet woodruff growing out of the wall.

Well, I'm off to relish my monday-me-time. Having Toby at home for the last 2 weeks has been quite tiring, so it's very nice to have a bit of time to myself again with the children going back to school today. I'll be playing around with the blanket that I started over the Easter break.

Originally I had planned using Solveigs lovely 'flowers in the snow' pattern exactly as written but when I started joining the squares I felt the need for a bit more space between the coloured circles.

So I'm adding a round in grey before starting the squaring-off round.

I'm using mostly Rooster Almerino yarn which is beautifully soft. All notes and yarn used etc. over on my ravelry project page if you want more details.

Thanks for stopping by. I'll be back soon, hopefully with some knitting news of a new pattern 🙂

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PS: This is not a sponsored post – I don't do those. I only write about things that I like and I buy with my own money.