Writers Block

A combination of writers block and just not being at home have lead to a very very long blogging break.  I'm back now and will try harder!

The last 2 weeks have been chaotic with this week due to be the same.   For the last 2 weeks I have been away 2 nights each week staying in Colchester,  this week I have mammoth travelling to do,  Colchester (100 miles),  then off to Leeds in the afternoon (200 miles) and overnight stay with a day in the office on Thursday,  return to Colchester (200 miles), overnight stay and after another day in the office, returning home on Friday (100) miles.  I don't know about you but I feel exhausted just thinking about all of that!  Needless to say there will be no more blog posts until Saturday!

I have been carrying my crochet hooks and some yarn with me on my travels and when sitting in my hotel room I have been putting them to good use.     These are the latest creations:-

Ruffled tea cosy 

My first attempt at Tunisian Crochet

Crochet roses on the top

Simple Crochet Tea Cosy

Last week My Girl and I hooked up on Skype whilst I was sitting lonely in my hotel room, and it was brilliant!  We had the webcams on and we chatted and crocheted together for 2.5 hours one evening - it was just like being in the room together, chatting, crocheting, surfing the internet - a really clever little programme and one we will be using lots in the future.

The Lottie hasn't been forgotten but is a little neglected, hopefully life will calm down a little soon and I will rediscover some energy then I can spend some time over there and bring it all back into order.   Having said that I think the ground work earlier this year is paying off!  I visited on Saturday and picked and picked and dug and picked some more and this is what I came home with;-

A whole Boot-full of goodies!  

Runner Beans, French Beans and Apples

Onions, Blackberries and potatoes

Cabbage, potatoes, carrots, radishes and Beetroot

Monster courgettes!

Several jars of bramble jam have been made,  Mr Milly spent the rest of the day in the kitchen blanching and freezing the beans and carrots,  the beetroot have been loving roasted in the oven and are now sitting in the fridge waiting for a suitable meal.  The courgettes are becoming marrows and the neighbours are running every time they see me as I keep trying to give courgettes to everyone, even the chickens are turning their beaks up at the thought of more courgettes!  We are becoming very inventive in using them,  but there is a limit on how many meals a person can have with courgette in them!  I think a few might make the 100 mile trek to Colchester tomorrow........

Hope you have a lovely week.

Alison x

Norty birdies

As we had a hose pipe ban earlier this year I decided that I wasn't going to plant hanging baskets in the garden,  we had 12 last year and they were really pretty and colourful for the whole summer,  but they do take a lot of watering and with me being away from home so much this madre up my mind that this summer it would not be practical to maintain them.

Instead I planted the herb/veggie table with flowers,  a much bigger area to hold more water and this would be very easy to water with a watering can unlike hanging baskets.   We have been really pleased with the table and the added bonus is that it is easily seen from the house too as it right outside the patio doors to the garden.

We were only saying a couple of days ago that the chickens have been really well behaved and have left the table alone.  There is netting all around it, but we have left one side open for watering and just to be able to appreciate the view a little better.

Well we definately spoke too soon,  I walking into the lounge yesterday and one look at the flower table and low and behold THREE chickens were sat right in the middle of the flowers...  aarggh!

Quite happy in the middle of the flowers

Norty, norty birdies..   as soon as they caught sight of me walking towards them they knew they were in trouble - no doubt my squeal of displeasure was a bit of a give away too....  so instead of three chickens sitting in the middle of the table there were three chickens running all over the table to get away from me.... the flowers were getting more and more squashed by the milisecond!  I managed to grab Hettie and ejected her,  Gillian and Stella were then like 2 Kamikaze chickens launching themselves everywhere that was no where near my hands,  finally I managed to grab them too and they were duly ejected.  Actually it was really funny with them being like complete mad things  flapping and clucking and running and launching......

Now they know they have been spotted and have started to run.....

Doing there best to get away and launching themselves at the netting
 at the back of the table...  there is no hiding I've seen you!!!

The poor table is now looking decidedly flattened and sorry for itself..  hopefully a good water and bit of feed it will perk up.  And the netting - now firmly secured from all angles!!

At the Seaside

Did you guess where we went from the clues on yesterday's post?   My Girl and I spent the day in Blackpool.   It is probably 30 odd years since I have been to Blackpool and My Girl has never been,  it was certainly an interesting day!

First we visited a Rock shop,  but this one was making rock and giving demonstrations throughout the day,  it was fascinating watching the demonstrations.

We then wandered along to the beach front, so very british and exactly what I had imagined Blackpool to be,  I was fascinated with the Donkey rides and especially the one little donkey who decided to have a little wander on his own

After people watching for a while, we decided to ride on a tram,  I've never been on a tram and wanted to experience it!

We did like the look of the vintage trams running along the sea front,  but my goodness there were expensive,  so we may do with taking photos of them.

We departed our tram at Pleasure beach,  just to have a look at it,  unfortunately you have to buy tickets to even enter Pleasure Beach which was a shame as we would have liked to have just taken a look - no rides for us this time!

Finally after walking along the pier,  My Girl wanted chips in Gravy not something you can find easily in the south of the country, but is everywhere 'up north'.  The chips were found and we sat on the sea front for My Girl to enjoy her lunch!

We did have a lovely day and I am so relieved that My Girl seems to be back to normal health and is recovering well from her operation.

Alison x

A little scary

I did promise a few blogs ago that I would share some exciting news......  well the exciting news is .....  I'm going to be a Grandma!!

My Girl is expecting a baby which is due in December and will be a Christmas baby,  I am told that I going to be called Grandma, although I much prefer Nanny I will try to change My Girl's mind on that over the course of the next couple of months!

In true My Girl style she has given us the most worrying time over the last couple of weeks and has been very unwell.  It started with a phone call from Josh her partner to say that she had been taken into hospital with back pain and sickness,  the phone calls and updates went on for a day as she was tested for various things whilst having some heavy duty drugs to control the pain.  I managed to arrange sometime off from work at short notice and was able to go to Manchester to stay close by.   Eventually it was discovered she had gall stones, which is very common in pregnancy,  however My Girl then went on to develop Pancreatitis as a result of the gall stones.   Careful monitoring followed for another day or so and eventually the doctors decided that the gall bladder would have to be removed to prevent the Pancreatitis becoming any worse.  As you can imagine being in mid pregnancy this was not an ideal thing to happen and to have an operation at this point was scary!

The operation went well,  My Girl is very much better and the baby is doing OK!  What a huge relief for all of us.

I have been backwards and forwards to Manchester several times now over the last 2 weeks and have driven hundreds and hundreds of miles!   I hope I am forgiven for the severe lack of blogging recently, but I am sure you can understand why.

The last visit to Manchester was to spend a couple of days with My Girl for her birthday and a couple of chill out days together,  we did have a lovely time,  one of the days we visited a very well know Seaside town.......  can you guess where it is????

More about our day out to follow.....
Alison x