Offpiste

 When I went to the craft show at the NEC in March I bought a kit to knit an asymmetrical scarf, I was really drawn to the colour and the yarn was really soft and squishy.  

It's called the Off piste scarf and is from The Wool Shop Leeds, I don't think they have a bricks and mortar shop any longer, just a website.

The pattern and two balls of James C, Brett Twisted yarn were included, I chose the shade T3, but the kit does come in other colours. 

It's just so soft and drapey, I'd definitely consider using it again to knit another scarf or shawl.

It was a lovely day when I washed it and I decided to hang it on the line with some pegs to weight it down, I bet the neighbours wondered what I doing, lol

The weather was glorious for the majority of last week, this week the temperatures have dropped again, I'm glad I took the opportunity to get out in the garden while it was nice.
The daffs and the forsythia have finished now but they do bring some colour while they are here.

Just a few days of sunshine and the white tulips are joining the pink ones

 And the Pieris has turned a glorious red.

In just a few days the Hostas doubled in size

 and the anemones, which I had forgotten I'd planted were a nice surprise.

The previous owners planted lots of Primula's so we have them dotted all over.

My fairy garden :-) 

Not everyone's cup of tea, but it makes me smile when I look out my kitchen window.

Mark thinks I'm totally insane, but seeing this little house lit up at night makes me smile :-)

Something else that made me smile, our cheeky squirrel, he was in no hurry to move from his sunny spot on the bird feeder!

Thank you to everyone who stopped by to leave congratulation messages, Arthur is already growing so fast, he didn't loose any of his birth weight but has gained 7oz in just over a week!

Oliver is taking everything in his stride, being the only one for so long we did wonder how he would react to having another small person in the house, but he's enjoying being a big brother, that may change in a few years when he has to share his toys, lol.

Until next time

-X-

Three times a Nanna :-)

Just a very quick post to say that Jenny had a little boy on Saturday 14th April at just a few minutes after 9pm.

This time I was able, and very fortunate to see my new Grandson come into the world,

It was a very moving and beautiful experience and I'm so glad that Jenny and James allowed me to share it with them.

He weighed 9lb 5oz and they have called him Arthur, and he's got a good set of lungs on him, lol

Mum and baby are doing well, they had to stop in hospital until Monday because they detected a very slight heart murmur, the doctor has said that it is very very small and they will check it again at 6 weeks, apparently it is quite common and usually heals it self.

Oliver is over the moon that he has a baby brother, I think he was starting to think that this baby would never arrive, every day last week he would ask, is the baby coming today?

James is on Paternity leave now for the next two weeks so I will leave them to get used to being a family of four and visit only if i'm needed in that time, not that they would mind me visiting but I think it is important that they have time to themselves to adjust.

Hopefully I can get some better photos next time, the lighting in the delivery room was very dim and these are the best ones I took

Enjoy the sunshine if you are in the UK, It was very welcome this afternoon :-)

See you soon

-X-

I'm still here

Hello! I really haven't been very consistent with this blogging thingy this year have I.

But I'ts one of those things that if you leave too long it's hard to come back because the amount of stuff to say becomes overwhelming, so I won't bombard you with lots of things today, just a few snippets from the month of March.

The March weather was a bit up and down here in the UK, we had wind, rain, The Beast From The East, (and his little brother, the Mini Beast) which dumped two lots of snow on us.  My garden has still not recovered from all that and the last two days have been more like Autumn days, misty, dull and rainy, I hear we are promised better weather next week, I hope so because I've had enough of rain!

My mood was pretty much like the weather too.  I came down with a sickness bug which put me in bed for two days and it was a full week before I felt better, then the blood tests I had came back showing I was deficient in vitamin D -  well that probably goes some way to explaining why I was feeling so low!  This week I feel like I've turned a corner, not completely there, but better than I was.

We are still eagerly awaiting the new addition.  Jenny's due date was Monday, so any day now we will have a third grandchild :)

I've knitted four new cardigans but forgot to take photos of two of them, they were just plain white ones though, these are the other two.

I finished my ornament for March, well the stitching was completed in March but I didn't get around to making it up until March was out, (oops).

(Please excuse the pictures, they were taken at night and the light is making the fabric come out green, it's not)

We threw a little Sprinkle Baby Shower for Jenny and I made another nappy cake.

As you can see we had snow that day so unfortunately a few of people didn't make it, but those that did had a good time, I think.

I also went to Great Yarmouth with Joanne and Bonnie for a week, we had a couple of good days when the sun shone even if it was biting cold and we managed a walk along the sea font and despite the cold we managed to find a shop open on the beach front and had ourselves an ice cream, although it was so cold we sat in the car to eat them, lol

 I was very impressed with the beaches in that part of the country, and although it was out of season you could quite easily see that it would be quite beautiful on a warm sunny day.   

We stayed at a caravan park called Cherry Tree, which again I was very impressed with, very clean everywhere.

 Here's Bonnie's first encounter with the children's camp site characters :-)

She wasn't in the least big fazed by the giant frog and duck that appeared at breakfast, just bemused, lol

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March was also the month that our youngest daughter, Stevie-Leigh became all grown up by being a house owner, with a mortgage and everything, lol.  

We still can't quite believe it because in my head Stevie is still about 13 years old, although in reality she will be 24 next week, lol.

Everything went through just before Easter and She and her boyfriend, Darren got the keys the day before Good Friday but they are not moving in just yet as there is quite a bit to do in terms of cleaning and decorating, which means Mark is now spending his weekend time DIYing either at Joanne's or Stevie's house, so in the meantime his list of jobs to do at home is getting longer :-)

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I noticed that I have a few new followers, (waves), which is lovely, do stop and say 'hello' because blogger won't let me click on names in the followers box anymore so I have no idea if you have a blog I can visit or not unless you leave a comment.

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That's it for this long overdue post, I'm going to get an early night just in case I get a phone call from Jenny in the middle of the night :-)

Until next time

-X-