Candid camera

24 hours in Salisbury

A Friday night away and very nice it was too.

The Cathedral

with its temporary installation inside.

Dinner and a pint in the The Lazy Cow.

And on Saturday.... 

A bit of pomp and ceremony

together with a brief visit to Stonehenge for a picnic, with some time to people watch. 

And then home, lovely!

Guinness world record?

The smallest chicken egg ever?

I'm not sure its the smallest but it is very tiny and its definitely from one of my girls and not a stray blackbird thats got into the henhouse.  Just slightly bigger than a 10 pence piece. 

Omelette for dinner tomorrow night anyone?

Its been a while!

I've been back to work for a whole month now and its taking its toll already, come the weekend I'm fit for nothing. No blogging, no crafting, just catching up on all the things I previously did during the week. I think its the 2 hours driving a day that does it! 

Following on from my last post, we did in fact get the allotment sorted throughout the week, all 12 beds dug over and everything tidied up.  We also have a little friend who keeps a watchful eye on everything, waiting to have a little scratch around as soon as our backs are turned.

The Reading half marathon has also been and gone. It's the first time I've actually been to watch, supporting Jourdan and his friend who have come back from Uni for the Easter holidays and I surprised myself by enjoying it too.  Jourdan did very well, managing to knock quite a bit off last years time.

It was amazing watching people coming around to the finish line and I watched every single one of them, the only person I didn't see from the set off to the end was Jourdan! Next year I'm very tempted to have a go, but maybe just start with a 3k? 

Neglected!

It's nearly Spring and time to get down to the allotment. 

Oh dear! To say its been neglected is a bit of an understatement, shameful really. Last year for some reason we really didn't get our act together with it, but this year will be different (Statement to be repeated every year).

Some hard labour later and we've cleared two beds, only ten more to go!

And time to declare war on the snails, who seemed to have moved in from everybody else's patches.

So this week, as long as the weather holds out, will be all about the allotment. 

I shouldn't even be here though as I should have started an eight week contract to work away from home, which unfortunately or fortunately however I choose to look at it, was cancelled at the last minute. Oh well another week at home. 

Finished bookcase - Before and after.

Again it took longer than anticipated, but i'm happy.

Before...

After...

New cushions

My previous cushion covers although practical and went with my room, at the time my mum made them for me, needed to be changed and so I set myself another project to do just that.

I bought new feather pads and then found ways to cover them with scrap fabrics etc.

This one is made from the length waste of a pair of Ikea curtains and a small piece of floral.

A patchwork cover made from an old French linen sheet I purchased in France in October for 2 euros, not good enough to keep as one piece but the monogram has worked out well. Mixed with some Irish linen and again good old Ikea curtain fabric.

 I'm really pleased with this one; its made from an old jumper that I got from car boot fair for £1 especially for the purpose of felting. The left hand side is the polo neck part. Just some buttons and lace added.

I also got a round pad which has been the most awkward to deal with. Covering it with fabric was above my sewing skills, so the obvious choice was to crochet the cover for it. Instead of wool, which wouldn't be as hardwearing, I chose a craft cotton (basically string) and crocheted both the back and the front the same in half trebles. I wanted to keep the stitches pretty close as I didn't want the pad to show through too much. 

Although quite nice, it was looking a bit boring. I didn't want anything too colourful or bright and so my final decision, after a lot of messing about, was to weave in different coloured wools. Pretty pleased with it actually.

Bertie doesn't like the new cushion as much as the old ones as she has learnt very quickly that she can't snuggle up on them. So as it stands there is still one old cushion in my living room just for her, spoilt or what!

no touching the new cushions!

After a couple of minutes sitting nicely she's off anyway to annoy Arthur.