A Mixed Bag...A Bit Like Our Weather!

The weekend was a bit of a wash-out weather wise, bit of sunshine and some quite heavy downpours at times, but the changing weather seems to have helped my Hostas along, they have shot up over the last couple of weeks.

I have two huge tubs with these in, this is the mixed one

And you can get a sense of how big they are when Oliver is alongside them!

He had great fun running up and down the garden in his Gruffalo Wellies, what is it with children and wellies?  The first thing he went to the cupboard for on Sunday morning when he got up was his wellies!

It's always a pleasure to look after this little fella, he is so entertaining, but busy, so busy, he never stops still for a minute!  Nanna and grandad are worn out when he goes home, but we don't mind, it keeps us on our toes, lol

Once his momma and dadda had collected him yesterday I sat myself down on the sofa with the intention of doing nothing, well, nothing but stitch :-)  It seems ages since I did any stitching and I'd had my eye on a free needle case chart for a few weeks so I pulled some fabric and threads together and made a start.

I can't remember who's blog I found this on but I didn't seem to have a key for the colours, so chose what to me looked like a close match.  I'm not good at putting colour together but I think it will look ok, It'll be bright at least!

Last week evenings were spent making granny squares again and I have now got another little pile. I think I'm up to around 30 or so now.  I did make a bit of a change though, Mark said he thought there was too much white so I've taken one row off, (he doesn't usually give too much of an opinion on what I'm doing so when he does I tend to take notice and have a think), and in this instance I think he may be right :-)

I should start sewing the ends in soon I suppose, can you see them all hiding at the back?  That I suspect, is going to be a project all of it's own!

Thanks to those who stop by, have a great week

-X-

Happy Easter Monday!

Easter greeting to you all. We were predicted a very wet weekend, it did rain a little yesterday afternoon but today the sun is shining beautifully :-)
  There were no chocolate eggs for the girls this year though, I decided not to buy any, mean, mean mum that I am, lol.  They did have a little something to open though, I made Jenny and Joanne a bookmark.  They both usually read books on their kindle now but just before Christmas we joined a reading group at one of our local libraries, so these will come in useful.
They were identical but I forgot to take a photo of them when they were done so this is Jenny's on last month reading group book.

Stevie is into baking cakes lately, she has had some great results for someone who never used to bake when she was at home, so her little present was this Jane Asher book.

Nanna did give in and buy the little dude a chocolate egg, just the one though.  He is quick to spot owls whenever we are out, shouting 'a owl, a owl', they do seem to be on just about everything at the moment, even Easter eggs, this one is almost to cute to eat!

Talking of the little dude, this is his latest trick, when he sees you with a camera he say's 'cheese' and screws his little face up.
bless him, we all love him to bits!

James (his dadda) arrived back safe and sound from his tour in Afghanistan this past week and is getting re-acquainted with him, 4 months is a long time when they are this small.  At least he will be at home for a few weeks now so that he can catch- up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

And there is another celebration today as it's Stevie's birthday!
 She has been at home over Easter so I've had to try and make a cake without her seeing.

My effort was well received this morning, but as she is going back to celebrate with her uni friends tonight I guess we won't get to taste it, lol
Those are kitkat's around the edge and I underestimated how many it would take and had to run up the shop yesterday afternoon and buy another pack, which is why if you look closely you can see two white chocolate ones at the back...oops!  
I searched everywhere to buy some Cadbury mini eggs to put in the centre but everywhere had sold out, we spied the last few bags just as we got to the till on Saturday but this guy in front grabbed them before I could get there...grrr so we had to make do with Smarties mini eggs instead

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
News on the house move is at a bit of a stand still.  Someone dropped out at the beginning of the chain, and although another buyer was found the next day it has probably set us back a couple of weeks......sigh.  On the plus side, at least I get more time to pack.

That's about all the news for now, hope you all have a great week and thanks for stopping by x
Until next time
-X-

A Saturday Train Hop

No stitching or crafting of any sort to share this week, I managed a bit of knitting but ran out of yarn so that has been put on one side until I can get to the shop.  Mostly my week has been taken up with more sorting and trying to get organised for the move.  We signed our contract on Friday and a provisional date has been set for completion on April 30th, but as our solicitor pointed out several times this is only a provisional date because our buyer's solicitor has been very elusive and no one is sure how far they have progressed with searches etc. We have everything crossed that it really won't go much beyond the end of the month, we just want to get in and settled now.

On Saturday Mark had to be at work in the Lake District and asked if I would like to go with him, it was only for the day but it would make a change and we could stay over and come back Sunday morning.  So while DH worked all day I went off shopping :-)  

He dropped me off in Ulverston which is only a small place, a few nice shops, (which didn't appear to open until 10am even on Saturday's!!) and a rather nice old fashioned indoor market, which thankfully was open so I could get out of the cold!

Ulverston is the birthplace of Stan Laurel  (so Mark informed me as he dropped me off), the slimmer half of 

Laurel & Hardy, I came upon the pair of them as I was walking around the town.

From there I caught the train to Barrow in Furness, not your typical English seaside town, it was more or less like most of the towns in the UK now, lots of charity shops, £ shops and others shop front's boarded up.  They did have some of the bigger store names there though and I treated myself to a new handbag (of course) and a couple of books :-)  Mid afternoon I hopped on the train again, to Grange Over Sands, this time the only shopping I did was for some food supplies for dinner, but I did have time to walk around a few of the shops and their pretty park.

The lovely train station at Grange

The day started off quite dull, cold and windy but you can see it ended with some beautiful sunshine.

View from the train station at Grange with the sea

in the distance

I jumped back on the train around 5.30 to go the couple of stops to Cark where Mark picked me up.  We set off early this morning to get back home before lunch time so we could have at least one day's rest before work again on Monday, It's made a very nice change but we are both shattered now!

I was going to share some of the books I've read lately, but I will save that for another post, It will give me something to share if there is no crafting going on :-)

Have a great week!

-X-

Wonderful Monday

Unlike many people, I have always quite liked Monday's.  To me Monday's are like a fresh page, a new start.  
When the girls were little I used to love getting their school uniform ready and shoes polished on Sunday nights all ready for the new week.  Now they have flown the nest I don't have that to do but I still like to get things organized on Sunday night ready for the new week. 

 Monday starts early for us, Mark has to be on his way by 4.45am so I'm up too around 4.30.  

Very occasionally I will go straight back bed and grab another couple of hours shut eye, like last week when the hour went forward, I was shattered, so I headed back to bed for another couple of hours.   

Big mistake!  I over slept, woke up in a panic and was late for work, really late, like 25 minutes late!  Luckily no one mentioned it when I got in, so I think I got away with it, lol.  But, that set the tone for the whole week, I didn't make it to work on time one morning last week, I was playing catch-up with everything, all week, it was a complete disaster. 

I blame it on that lost hour myself :-)

 So this morning I was determined to have a better week,   Once Mark had left for work I set about doing the housework and got as much done as I could before it was time to get ready for work.  I arrived at work with 5 minutes to spare,  (that shocked a few people lol).
With chores out of the way I had some guilt free stitching time to finish off last months NH challenge, (see, told you,I'm always playing catch-up ;-)

Apologies now for the photos, dull days and electric light = crappy pictures 

Now these monthly challenges are supposed to be ornament sized pieces, but as usual I went charging in not thinking about stitch or fabric count and ended up with something too big to be made into an ornament, (sigh).  Never mind, I love the design and will have to come up with some way of finishing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm doing my best to get organised for the house move, and decided to have a go at tarting a few things up in readiness.  I've had this little plain white tray for ages and gave it a pretty make over with some wrapping paper and decoupage glue.

And we have a step stool which we bought from Ikea years ago, we have high ceilings and tall cupboards so it has always come in useful.  It was just a plain old brown colour but it's come up lovely with a rub down and a couple of coats of wood stain.

I lightly sanded it down again once the stain had dried, but I think it may need a coat of clear sealer to finish it off.
This Friday we have an appointment with the solicitor to sign contracts, so fingers crossed it won't be long before we move, I'd better get a wriggle on with packing, all I seem to be doing at the moment is sorting and throwing away!  Hopefully we will get more of an idea of moving date on Friday so I can make a start.  There probably won't be much crafting time over the next few weeks, but I'll pop back and keep my blog up dated, I think I've lost a few visitors being away so long, although blogs in general seem to be a bit quiet, some that I used to read have not had any updates in a long, long time, but I've quite enjoyed getting back into it so I hope visitors will return eventually :-)

Until next time
-x-