general stuff · summer

seaside

Summer has really arrived here – it’s turned hot and sunny and Amy and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity that came our way last week for a girls only weekend at the seaside. We set off at the crack of dawn on Saturday and arrived with our friends in Walton on the Naze for breakfast.

The day at the beach was perfect and we topped it off with a visit to the pier, fish and chips and an evening at the kids club. It was so nice to get away and relax but lovely to come home again yesterday and see our menfolk who had pottered around the garden all weekend. Although we were only away for 18 hours it felt like a much longer break and I feel very relaxed this morning – hope that feeling lasts a little longer!

crafts & knitting · garden stuff · general stuff · summer

weekend stuff

We had a busy weekend with a lot of ballet rehearsals for Amy. There’s only a week to go before her ballet school perform Cinderella at the local theatre and Amy is Cinderella’s shadow (as you might imagine she’s very excited!) So that meant a lot of sitting around for me – not too bad when you’ve got a bag full of crochet to keep you busy! I’m working on lots of different bits at the moment which I hope will one day become a collection of cushions!

There was also a little garden time. Everything is growing like mad and there are loads of strawberries ripening.

We learnt our lesson from last year and picked them quick before the birds or the slugs could tuck into them.

They tasted good!

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PS: the crochet cushions above are all based on the summer garden granny square pattern from Attic24’s blog

garden stuff · summer

Garden

We’ve been lucky with the weather over the last week and have had plenty of sunshine which has meant lots of garden time. Most of the raised beds are planted up now – just successional sowings of carrots and french beans to go in a few weeks. Each of the 1msq beds have polythene fronts and are covered on the other sides with insect netting – it really saves time in picking off caterpillars and keeps off the slugs too. Everything that I’m growing inside is either self-pollinating or doesn’t need pollination. It seems to work and and everything is growing well.

It’s been good to potter in the garden and the half term week has been fairly relaxed so far.

There’s even been a little knitting going on and a little crochet too and my saggy, baggy bag is almost finished. I definitely need to improve my technique and maybe I’ll use a smaller hook in future. Still, it’s been fun learning something new. I’m off now to make a cup of tea and go and sit in the sun and watch the children bounce and splash!