today 28.7.16

Outside my window...dark. It's past 1am

Wearing... Jeans, brown top, favourite white Birkenstocks, elephant bracelet

Making me happy... chocolate milk with ice, it reminds me of a holiday abroad when I was young 

Making me think... the news


Creating... I'd like to make something with patchwork, so I'm musing on the possibilities 

Watching... nothing. Three consecutive nights without even turning the TV on. The quiet is refreshing

Reading... blogs. Down to Earth, Mr Home Maker, Small Things.


Listening... Julian Lennon 'Salt Water'

Going... to Gretna Green for my brother's wedding


Gardening... the sweet peas on the windowsill are flowering at last

Cooking...no cooking, it's too hot. Cold meals. Salads, fruit, wraps  

On my bedside table... glass of water, messy pile of make up and jewellery and a pile of books (on the floor next to the bed, large labrador)

not really knitting or reading

Knitting is a sore point as I've just finished something that took me a long time and right at the end has turned into a disaster that I can't fix. I was so fed up I stopped knitting for a week, which is unheard of!  I've started something else now, but I can't share as it's a gift. Instead, here is the blanket I finished a little while ago, my first crocheted item. I'm very pleased with it and I have made a cushion to match, though I haven't added the press studs or sew it up yet. Does anyone else have several items waiting to be sewn up? 

I've not been reading as much as usual lately. This book seems quite good so far, but hasn't really got going yet. For my book group this month we read Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, and a few of us saw the film. I'd recommend both - funny, bittersweet and thought provoking.  



Joining Ginny for Yarnalong 

fifteen months later

Glastonbury, 2016

Well, hello. Not sure what happened there, but here I am. What's new with you?

I'm currently in the throes of abandoning a knitting project that I've been working on and and off since April and now it's nearly finished I HATE IT. Does that ever happen to you? All that time wasted, argh. Ah well. I'll have to frog it and make something else - it's got millions of thin stripes though, so it will all be bits. Granny squares for it's new incarnation, maybe. (I learned to crochet! Made a blanket and everything).

I'm not reading so much, this year. I'll share my current book tomorrow, it's going ok but must only be about the fifth I've read this year. I usually read that many in a fortnight. I spend a lot of my reading time online I guess, and I'm admin on a Facebook group that takes up some time each day, some days more than others.

We've been away this year, we had 12 days in a cottage in Wiltshire in April for our fifth wedding anniversary. We try to get away on or around our anniversary every year. Last year we had a couple of days in Ely, at Peacock's Fine B and B which was lovely. We had a sitting room and bedroom, which was so much nicer in the evenings than just a bedroom with nowhere to sit except the bed. Peacock's is also a tearoom and did about a million different types of tea. The owner sent us away on our last day with complimentary packets of our favourites, Builder's for Philip and Russian Caravan for me. We combined our break with some family history research, as my great grandfather came from Ely. I loved it there. You know occasionally you visit somewhere and you think, I could live here. Maybe it was ancestral memory stirring in my genes.

My big news is that after more than six years of illness, and being housebound a lot of the time, I recovered from ME/CFS. I took a training programme called the Lightning Process, and haven't looked back! I first heard of it six years ago and how I wish I had it done it then. I'm glad I've done it now though and would recommend anyone with ME/CFS or other chronic conditions to look into it. I now know many other people who are recovered or greatly improved - and this is a condition for which the NHS has no cure, so it's wonderful that there is something out there that works.

We're away to Gretna Green soon for my brother's wedding, that will be lovely. The August Break starts next week, I might take part again, that will get me taking photos! My photo mojo seems to have waned in the last year or two. I've a baby niece due in October and I'm really looking forward to being an Auntie! We've put in an application to buy our house, and we're planning new gardens front and back before the end of the year. And then it will be Christmas. That seems like enough to be going on with.

I'll be back tomorrow for Yarnalong, with what I'm knitting/crocheting and what I'm reading. It's good to be here.