March Scavenger Hunt

. . . organised by Greenthumb, over at Made With Love, you can see the other entries by clicking here.

1) and 2) on the list were Green and 3, so I've got a two-in-one entry for this one

3) A person in uniform, this is one from the archives back in November when the Yorkshire Thirds paraded through town to receive the freedom of the town after their successful tour of duty in Afghanistan.

4) Bubbles in an empty beer glass

5) Shoes. I really, really love these shoes, but I've had them for so long they are now relegated to work shoes, I just wish I could find some more.

6) Toys. With no small children around, here is a basket of my toys instead

7) A gate. This one had been pushed over for access to a field, probably by travellers.

8) Eggs, or rather egg-shells, which I've saved to break up and put in the garden to deter snails.

9) Dessert - we dont do dessert in our house, so here is a picture of a picture of my favourite, banoffee pie

10) Water, it's raining outside

11) A bridge (magazine)

12) Empty. As I doubled up on 1 & 2, I now have two entries for empty to make up the numbers, an empty orange and an empty wine glass.

Five months on

From this

To this

 and here is my lovely new dresser

Tomorrow we move the table and chairs into the new dining room, and have a celebration meal.

Following on from yesterday's post . . .

. . . about Google reader and Bloglovin, the consensus seems to be wait and see. In the mean time I've added my blog list to a gadget at the side of my blog, if I'm a follower of yours then your updates will appear there, so never fear, I'm still stalking you.

As to my readers, well I'll just have to hope you dont desert me, apparently I'm already on Bloglovin, although no idea how that happened!

Back soon with a proper post, I'm around Tattenham Corner and galloping along almost to the Grandstand with the wallpapering (Surreyites and racing followers will know that means I've almost finished) in the dining room, I hope to be ready to show by the end of this week.

Happy Tuesday

Google Reader

I keep reading on various blogs that Google Reader is closing down. I do have Google Reader, but I dont use it to read my blogs, I just go to my Blogger dashboard and there they all are (all the ones I have "followed") in reverse chronological order, i.e. newest first, so I just scroll down until the last one I've read and move upwards from there. So, what I'm saying is that for me, personally, Google Reader closing down wont make a difference to my reading habits. But, and this is a big BUT, how many of you out there read my blog on Google Reader, and will you miss me when it closes? Did I ought to do what a lot of others are doing, and register with Bloglovin'?

Please, please if you read this, comment below and let me know, I would hate to lose any of my readers, I value you all, even those of you who aren't actual "followers".

Happy Monday x x

A week through my window

Sunday, snowy

Monday, misty

Tuesday,grey

Wednesday, hazy

Thursday, wet

Friday, almost sunny

Linking up with Green Day Friday

at Raindrops and Daisies

Seed Disks

I've never heard of these before, but I saw them in Poundstretcher the other day, £2.50 for a pack of 2, so I thought I would give them a go.

The idea is that you fill your hanging baskets almost to the top

and then place the disks in position. I decided that rather than have one blue basket and one yellow basket I would have two mixed baskets, so I cut the disks into quarters and placed them thus.

You then cover them, water, place in the greenhouse or somewhere warm, and wait. I guess if you come back in early June, I might be able to show you the end results hanging in my garden.

I am so desperate for it to warm up a bit, as these all need sowing, but its just too cold right now.

It is dry though, so I may venture outside this afternoon and do a bit more preparation on my second veg raised bed.

Please pop over . . .

. . . and take a peek at my other blog "Wanda with me".

Wanda feels a bit lonely with not many followers. Ahhhh, bless.

Sting in the tail

Can this really be St. Patrick's Day, 17th March?

Time to retire . . .

. . . from proof-reading, I think.

One day last week we decided to return to Candle Hill, which we visited back in September of last year and you can read about here.

We drove up there, had a picnic lunch in the car, a little stroll round, took some photos, and then made our way back home. Wanting to look on the map to see where a particular byway led to, I noticed that the name is Cradle Hill, not Candle. Whoops.

Daffs

Linking to Green Day Friday  Raindrops and Daisies

A sneak preview

Ever since we decided, last autumn, to turn the snug into a dining room, I've had the idea at the back of my mind that I'd like a nice dresser to stand in the alcove between the chimney breast and the patio door wall. GM kept asking me what I had in mind, but in fact, apart from knowing it needed to be a dresser and that it needed to fit the space, I had no pre-conceived idea. However, he kept on asking, so in the end I thought I'd have a quick look on ebay to see if there was anything that I liked that I could show him.

Well, what do you know? The very first one I looked at was absolutely perfect for the job, it was in Thatcham, which is just over an hours drive from here, and the bidding finished that very day. I showed it to him, he liked it, we decided on a budget (to include transportation, as it wouldn't fit in the back of my car) and I placed a bid. You may remember from an earlier post (here) that I seem to be pretty lucky with ebay purchases, again on this occasion I was the only bidder and by 9 o'clock that evening we were the proud owners of a quite fantastic piece of furniture.

I dont want to show it properly until it's in it's intended location, and we aren't quite ready for that yet, so here's just a sneak preview.

Springtime/Easter swap

. . . organised by me.

I was lucky enough to be partnered with Jille, over at Love to Craft, and my package arrived a couple of days ago. Jille was very generous, the whole thing was wrapped in a lovely pink fabric and tied up with green ribbon, the ice cream tub was overflowing with gifts

 

. . . here are all my goodies laid out.

Jille obviously took the time to find out my likes, as she has sent me a couple of bits for the garden, one of which is a grow-in-the-tin Morning Glory (I've never seen these before), which I had mentioned I might put in the garden where I'd removed a rose, and the other a pack of Gloxinia.

As well as the green ribbon around the parcel itself, there was a whole reel of beautifully patterned green ribbon, a handknitted cloth with a gorgeously delicate crocheted flower embellishment, and a quite fabulous embroidered bookmark.

Also included were a chocolate Easter Bunny, (which lasted all of two minutes after the photo!), a lovely Bronnley exfoliating gardeners soap, a butterfly clip and a Happy Easter toast marker.

Thanks Jille for my lovely gifts and for being a great swap partner. Here is what I sent to Jille,

and you can see her post here.

Book Review, Quick & Simple Knit Hats & Scarves

I was sent this book by F+W Media for review purposes

It more or less does exactly what it says on the packet, it features 14 designs by up and coming designers. You would think that with something as basically simple as a hat or a scarf it would be difficult to come up with new and interesting designs, but this book proves me wrong on that count.

As I started to read through the book I was a bit disconcerted, as it was obviously aimed, initially, at the US market, there were one or two terms in the instructions that I was unfamiliar with. But I need not have worried, as I got to the very back of the book, pages 34 and 35, there was a double spread of General Knitting Information which gave all the necessary translation of terms, and conversion charts for needle sizes, yarn weights and metric measures - it was just a pity that this information was at the back, I would have been happier had it been at the beginning of the book, but that's just nit-picking, really.

Put that initial criticism to one side, and what you have is an interesting, well documented pattern book with lovely colour illustrations, which I would recommend to all knitters, both beginners and those more experienced.

R.R.P. for this book is £6.99, but you can buy it here for £6.06 (plus postage).