veggie magic

one of the weekly highlights for me is still our veggie bag
the best bit for me yesterday, was that hubby was home so he could carry it up the hill. I refused to let him drive, even though the car was available, so that he got the true veggie experience.



for the little people this was certainly the highlight of the haul



but for me - well take your pick, it could be a magic wand, a glamourous red finger nail, or best of all a red lightsaber !

rain fairies?

it feels like there's been an awful lot of grey and wet round here the last few weeks

in fact so much rain that these little mushrooms are popping up all over our garden.

either it's a sign of a lot of damp

or there are rain fairies in my garden?

I know which I prefer - what about you?

floodlit fountains

Sunday night, 7pm.
family all full of roast dinner, and eagerly awaiting the apple crumble to come out of the oven.
so we do eat the apple crumble?
oh no, we turn off the oven - leaving the crumble inside to let it cool down slowly, we wrap up in warm jumpers and we go out....

to the gardens, where there was a special late opening and floodlighting.

it is even more magical in the dark



trying to capture the fountains was quite a challenge,



as you still had to remember to watch out in case you got soaked....

splish splash

and the crumble was just the right temperature when we got home......

crazy mom's quilt a long finally finished

finally, 18 months after I started - shocking huh! I've finished the quilt I started as one of crazy mom's quilt a longs. I think she has run 4 or 5 since...........
no idea why it took so long, perhaps because I knew it wasn't for me, and was always going to be a gift for my sister in law and her husband, (it was going to be a wedding gift, a year later and it's a house warming gift too.........)

all of the blues were from my stash, and I only bought the creamy white sashing and some of the cream for the blocks. so it's almost a scrap quilt. love that. want to start another one.



here's the view the other way on, not sure which is the top



and here's the back, also pieced to save on fabric. finished size 5ft x 7ft.



it's called Scattered Blues. and I finished it in my new studio - still loving that.

being a teenager again

we've been here for 7 weeks now
which is long enough for me to remember which cupboard the cornflakes are in, but not long enough to have made enough friends.
so that when hubby goes away with work I don't want to sit at home all weekend feeling isolated, and instead the children and I hop on the train and go "home", back to where we came from 7 weeks ago.
which they loved, train rides, and being spoilt by grandparents, and seeing some friends.
it was rather bittersweet for me, in my head were constantly the thoughts of "I liked it here, why did we move?"

strangest though was sleeping at my parents house. I last spent a night there when we moved back from Boston 11 years ago. Before then it was in the holidays as a student, or of course as a child.

which is what I felt like on Saturday night. we ate dinner, Miss K and E went to bed, and then I suddenly thought "I really feel like going and calling on F."
F and I were at primary school together from the age of 5. We are still in touch because she is really good at that kind of thing, and whilst we've both moved away/back several times in the last 3 1/2 decades she now lives back in her family home which she inherited a few years ago. the family home that is a 10 minute walk from my parents.

"mum, can I go round to F's house" and off I wandered through the village, just the same as it always has been, and we sat and chatted, and drank tea, and put the world to rights for hours.

until long past midnight when I glanced at the clock, and said "oh god, look at the time, I haven't got a key and my mum will be sitting up waiting for me"

and she was...........

october views and veggies

I forgot to let you look out of the windows when you stopped by for a visit, so here is the view from the front room and my studio (oh how I love how that sounds!)



the road snaking down the hill past many many roof tops, before the landscape opens out to fields, and there in the distance a hint of water. depending on the day/time/sky/ it ranges from a brilliant blue, to the dullest of greys. mostly greys if I'm honest but it still makes my heart beat just a little faster when I see it.



this is today. ok, so who has stolen the sea? I still have roof tops to look at, the huge yellow salt bin (oh what fun, that means the road is going to be an ice rink come winter), but the sliver of sea which constitutes our view is gone.......



equally alarming is the view if I look the other way, in between the houses at the end of the street is a field, and beyond that about a mile or so away is the main road, once which travels the length of the country onwards to Scotland, or heading south it goes right past where we moved from. it is my escape route back to all that is familiar. I am very concerned it is not there......

something that is still there though is the hill. in order to get these views we live up a hill. I know it's still there because I walk up and down it several times a day. Yesterday it felt a lot further and steeper because I had signed up for a vegetable bag scheme at school. the idea is that you get a seasonal bag of local veg/fruit, and because it gets taken to school with lots of other orders you don't pay delivery. which is where the theory falls apart - ie it doesn't get delivered home.

and it's heavy
very heavy



but I'm really excited to find out what's in it, and I have another bag with me to transfer some of it into to make the carrying just a little easier



oh the excitement to open it all up, and discover wonderful treats, and to plan dinner around what's inside, (and what needs eating up first..........)



just one thing though, anyone know what this is?