There’s been a fair bit of wet and stormy weather around lately but that’s been good news for the garden where everything now has that early summer vibrancy and is growing vigorously. In some cases a little to vigorously as my little veg patch is getting swamped by the herb edging. This year I’m growing beetroot, broccoli, kale, french beans, peas, courgettes and lettuce and I’m looking forward to a green feast in another month or so.

Happily we’ve had a taste of summer too with a few days that have been warm and sunny enough to sit outside. There’s something so very calming and relaxing about an afternoon outside with something nice to eat and drink, a little knitting and a good book (Knitlandia by Clara Parkes is a great read if you are a knitter, though my copy has already lost it’s pretty dust-jacket to Toby’s paper tearing obsession). Hopefully there are more sun-filled summer days to come.

My knitting has been very influenced by the colours of a summer garden too. I was so thrilled when I managed to buy this wonderful skein from Maya at The Wool Barn. Her yarns are exquisitely hand dyed so it’s not surprising that they sell out so very quickly. This colour-way is called Rose Garden and I’m knitting a crescent shawl from it, Helen Stewart’s Spindrift Shawl. I’m almost finished now and just need to choose between pink and green for the edge, as I fancy a contrasting border.

There have been some happy days working on this in the summer sunshine and it’s been lovely to escape some of the stresses of exam time (Amy’s GCSE’s have spanned most of the last month) with a little gentle and undemanding knitting. We’re all looking forward to next Tuesday when Amy has her last exam. She will be so relieved and it will be nice to have a more relaxed atmosphere here. It’s been a bit exhausting trying to keep Toby quiet in his middle-of-the-night-awake periods but essential in order to make sure that Amy has had the sleep she needs to do well in her exams.

Sorry that I’ve not been around much recently, I’ve not felt like I’ve had much of interest to say or to share. Life has been full of ordinary family stuff with it’s ups and downs and we live day to day, which is the best way to approach life with Toby, but so often the day seems to whizz by without much getting done. I do try to take photos when something interesting presents itself (like this wonderfully tender swan family encountered on a walk a few weeks back), but I seem to have lost my blog voice a little. Hopefully I’m just a little hoarse rather than completely voice-less and I’ll be back soon with more words. ‘Til then thanks for visiting x