Overheard as I nipped out for a salad at lunchtime.
Community Support Officer (CSO) to small boy holding brightly coloured spade and castle bucket (of which I am ever so slightly envious): Are you going to the beach to build a sandcastle?
Small boy: Yes, I'm going with Mummy and Gran, and I'm going to build the biggest sandcastle!
Thoughtful pause
Small boy: Are you going to arrest someone and put them in jail?
CSO (valiantly stifling laughter): Not right now, no.
Small boy: Oh well - maybe later?
Poor child, he really wasn't quite sure why all the adults around him had creased up in giggles. Oh, and before you think I'm too crazy - I work in Birmingham, possibly the furthest city from the sea in the UK, and yes, we have a beach. It's fake - if you fancy a trip to see it, all the details are here.
Showing posts with label Summer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Summer. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Sunday snoozing
I spent yesterday afternoon in a happy warm daze; spreadeagled on my pretty blue quilt and endless cushions in the dappled sunshine, relaxed but conscious that this, this is an English summer - however fleeting.
Our roses are now in full bloom, and, rather overladen with buds, have pulled away from the wall of the house to create a natural arbour across the lawn.
I'll have to do something about it soon, and it was in serious need of a good prune but for the moment we're just enjoying the flowers, the butterflies and the bees.
Did you know that bumblebees have different coloured tails? I had no idea until we saw a poster at Hill Top, and now I have to check out all the bees I see. The ones in our garden have all been white tailed bumblebees so far, but there are quite common red ones and buff ones and ones that are brown all over.
I semi-intentionally planted our garden for butterflies because I think that they are beautiful and at the moment it seems to be paying off - the hebes are a mass of bees, cabbage whites and peacocks and a friend's buddleia was covered with close to 20 butterflies on Saturday afternoon; a good 10 plus Peacocks
A Tortoiseshell that I couldn't get close to, and this Painted Lady that posed for a brief second.
We went to a wedding on Friday where butterflies were the main theme (pink and lilac ones)
The weather was perfect, the bride and groom were radiant,
and most happily perched on the top of their cake (with just a few jokes about the marzipan groom's vibrant orange hair from the best men).
In all of this general summer laziness I have been knitting. I finished H's hot socks on Tuesday and couldn't decide on which socks to cast on next, so I cast on for two pairs:
This is the start of a pair of Cookie A's Kai-Mei socks, from her book Sock Innovation in my handspun sock yarn that started out life as fibre from Freyalynn at Wonderwool.
And this is the start of a pair of stripy Noro socks - a skein of Kureyon Sock (95 I think), 2.25mm needles, 68 stitches and a colour change every five rows.
They are addictive knitting - as of Saturday afternoon the Kureyon sock looked like this:
And as the sun started to float down towards the horizon on Sunday afternoon, I was lying flat out on the quilt finishing A Far Cry by Emma Smith (another great Persephone find) whilst wearing two socks:
Hmm - maybe no-one will notice?
Our roses are now in full bloom, and, rather overladen with buds, have pulled away from the wall of the house to create a natural arbour across the lawn.
I'll have to do something about it soon, and it was in serious need of a good prune but for the moment we're just enjoying the flowers, the butterflies and the bees.
Did you know that bumblebees have different coloured tails? I had no idea until we saw a poster at Hill Top, and now I have to check out all the bees I see. The ones in our garden have all been white tailed bumblebees so far, but there are quite common red ones and buff ones and ones that are brown all over.
I semi-intentionally planted our garden for butterflies because I think that they are beautiful and at the moment it seems to be paying off - the hebes are a mass of bees, cabbage whites and peacocks and a friend's buddleia was covered with close to 20 butterflies on Saturday afternoon; a good 10 plus Peacocks
A Tortoiseshell that I couldn't get close to, and this Painted Lady that posed for a brief second.
We went to a wedding on Friday where butterflies were the main theme (pink and lilac ones)
The weather was perfect, the bride and groom were radiant,
and most happily perched on the top of their cake (with just a few jokes about the marzipan groom's vibrant orange hair from the best men).
In all of this general summer laziness I have been knitting. I finished H's hot socks on Tuesday and couldn't decide on which socks to cast on next, so I cast on for two pairs:
This is the start of a pair of Cookie A's Kai-Mei socks, from her book Sock Innovation in my handspun sock yarn that started out life as fibre from Freyalynn at Wonderwool.
And this is the start of a pair of stripy Noro socks - a skein of Kureyon Sock (95 I think), 2.25mm needles, 68 stitches and a colour change every five rows.
They are addictive knitting - as of Saturday afternoon the Kureyon sock looked like this:
And as the sun started to float down towards the horizon on Sunday afternoon, I was lying flat out on the quilt finishing A Far Cry by Emma Smith (another great Persephone find) whilst wearing two socks:
Hmm - maybe no-one will notice?
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
With apologies for recent inattention
We just had 'summer'. I had to go and see it while it lasted. 'Summer' apparently is a weather phenomenon in which it gets warm and sunny and stays that way for many days. I am reliably informed by Google that in some places in the world, this constancy of solar attention may even last for weeks (actually, Google even said months, but that can't be right surely?)
Happily, summer mostly looks like this:
With some knitting thrown in - it was good.
Anyway, now that we are back to torrential downpours interspersed with twinkles of sunshine, I can show you what has been on the needles during the Pimms season:
I fell victim to the craze for Baby Tulip jackets a while back and ordered a kit from Socktopus but never got around to knitting it - mainly because all the babies kept being boys. The horizon is now mercifully baby free for a little while but I knit this just because I wanted to - it's going in the drawer for later.
It's impossible to fault this pattern or yarn, as I knit through each colour change I decided then and there that I just had to have a sweater out of that colour - I think I may be planning a lot of sweaters!
The great thing is that the kit has plenty of leftovers - I contemplated a matching baby hat but as my one regret is that I will never wear this jacket, I think the leftovers might just become a hot water bottle cover (and yes that is a staple requirement of the English summer) so that I get to snuggle up with them.
For a big project I've picked up the Hidcote Garden Shawl that I started last summer and I'm gently cruising through in the evenings. As it resembles nothing so much as the remnants of the interaction between a tap dancing spider and a ball of garden twine at present there is no picture.
Suffice to say it used to be this big and now it's this big. See - I knew that would help.
My train knitting has taken a little variation too - of the Mason Dixon variety:
This is the first of I suspect several tab topped hand towels from the second Mason Dixon book - knit out of Sugar & Cream dishcloth cotton in colours Hot Blue and Summer Splash. It usually lives buttoned onto my oven door, which was not clean enough to permit photos, and is in frequent use. The chief advantage of having the towel buttoned to the oven seems to be that no-one uses it 'accidentally' to dry the plates, pull something out of the oven, or wipe down the surfaces - genius!
The surfaces have been in need of wiping, because I've been baking:
And then icing!
Flowers and butterflies to match the flowers and butterflies outside - and delicious into the bargain!
Happily, summer mostly looks like this:
With some knitting thrown in - it was good.
Anyway, now that we are back to torrential downpours interspersed with twinkles of sunshine, I can show you what has been on the needles during the Pimms season:
I fell victim to the craze for Baby Tulip jackets a while back and ordered a kit from Socktopus but never got around to knitting it - mainly because all the babies kept being boys. The horizon is now mercifully baby free for a little while but I knit this just because I wanted to - it's going in the drawer for later.
It's impossible to fault this pattern or yarn, as I knit through each colour change I decided then and there that I just had to have a sweater out of that colour - I think I may be planning a lot of sweaters!
The great thing is that the kit has plenty of leftovers - I contemplated a matching baby hat but as my one regret is that I will never wear this jacket, I think the leftovers might just become a hot water bottle cover (and yes that is a staple requirement of the English summer) so that I get to snuggle up with them.
For a big project I've picked up the Hidcote Garden Shawl that I started last summer and I'm gently cruising through in the evenings. As it resembles nothing so much as the remnants of the interaction between a tap dancing spider and a ball of garden twine at present there is no picture.
Suffice to say it used to be this big and now it's this big. See - I knew that would help.
My train knitting has taken a little variation too - of the Mason Dixon variety:
This is the first of I suspect several tab topped hand towels from the second Mason Dixon book - knit out of Sugar & Cream dishcloth cotton in colours Hot Blue and Summer Splash. It usually lives buttoned onto my oven door, which was not clean enough to permit photos, and is in frequent use. The chief advantage of having the towel buttoned to the oven seems to be that no-one uses it 'accidentally' to dry the plates, pull something out of the oven, or wipe down the surfaces - genius!
The surfaces have been in need of wiping, because I've been baking:
And then icing!
Flowers and butterflies to match the flowers and butterflies outside - and delicious into the bargain!
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