Had a nice family weekend – woodland walks, roast chicken & apple pie – that kind of old-fashioned spending time together kind of affair. It’s been wonderful to see Toby growing in confidence since he started school. A few months ago we would only take him out on walks where there was a good enough path for his special needs buggy. He’s always much preferred to ride than walk and as he can be very unpredictable and has no sense of danger with roads and rivers etc, I’ve been happy to let him sit in the buggy – it’s seemed safer. This weekend though we opted for a woodland wellie walk rather than our usual sojourn along the canal tow path and Toby did brilliantly. He seemed so grown up toddling along on his own and he was especially excited by the wind in the trees and the falling leaves.

On the knitting front I was suddenly seized by the desire to try something new. I’ve had a play with different animals before – sometimes with pretty disastrous results: poor old Charlie Cat – he’s never been quite right!

But at the end of last week I was inspired and thought monkey! I’m still working on tweaking the pattern and may have to make a few more prototypes but it’s getting there I think. Looking at it now this photo is a little gruesome looking – a row of decapitated heads! Sorry! I’ll be working on bodies and hopefully will have a finished monkey template by the end of the week.