A cold snap

We've had a heavy frost the last couple of nights - exactly the reason why gardeners know that the frost risk isn't over until the end of May (in my particular part of the world) - but does that stop us from thinking it might have ended early?  Er, no.

I do have a greenhouse heater but I haven't put it on, I've just been trusting that everything will be warm enough under the Papronet (ancient forefunner to garden fleece that I brought from my Dad's greenhouse) and so far, the seedlings seem to be OK.

Sunny Sunday

It's been snowing in other parts of the country today but not, of course, in the volcanic hotspot that is Winwick.  Here, it's been beautifully Spring-like with bright sunshine that was even warm enough to sit out in for short periods of time, so I did!

I've been Spring cleaning today, I've blitzed the house from top to bottom and rewarded myself every now and again with a brew and a few rounds of my sock.  Do you ever do that?  Use your knitting as a reward to get you through something that you'd probably prefer not to do?  Cleaning isn't my favourite activity but I do feel very virtuous now the house is sparkling and smells of fresh air as all the windows have been open.  And yes, that is the Mermaid's Tail sock and no, it's not finished.

I've been experimenting with ways to avoid the pooling on the gusset that you get with yarns from time to time and I think I've come up with a way to do it, so I'll write it up as a tutorial in the next couple of weeks if that would be helpful, but it has meant that I've re-knitted the gusset more times than I usually would do on one sock!

Another Friday

How is it that I managed to write a blog post every day for nearly two weeks and now it's been over a week since the last one?!  I think it doesn't help that it's the school holidays as my usual mush-brain turns into holiday mush-brain and I have no idea what day it is 😀  It just goes to show how we manage to fit things in - or not - but here I am at last with a catch up from the last week or so.

These photos were take on one of the walks I did before small daughter broke up for the Easter holidays.  We were out at the Nine Arches in Earlestown again and I took a different path which runs parallel to the main cycle path.  This wide grassy area was lined on both sides by what I thought were hawthorn bushes but reading this post of Lucy's, I think maybe they're blackthorn instead.  I'm now thinking we might have a blackthorn tree in our garden and that's been a mystery to me for the nearly 18 years we've lived here so that's good to know!

The flowers are very pretty, and very like hawthorn flowers.  It was so lovely to walk down the flower-lined path, it really felt as if Spring had definitely arrived and that everything around me just couldn't wait to burst into life.