Friday

It’s Friday!  And lockdown restrictions start to ease next week!  It definitely sounds to me like wine o’clock should start a little bit earlier today 🙂  Having said that, not much changes next week for us apart from small daughter going back to school so it could be that I’m just seeing an excuse to drink more wine …

So how’s your week been?

I’m not quite sure where mine has gone, and I’m also not quite sure what I’ve done with it!

I did notice that signs of Spring are popping up everywhere now.  This border is along our side path and every year I am delighted to spot purple crocuses that have been missed by a mouse (mice seem to really like crocuses, they must be extra-tasty!) …

The snowdrops are still out too – that’s nearly two months!  I first wrote about them on 13 January this year so there’s only a week to go … I can’t remember if they are usually around for this long or whether it’s something that I’m more aware of this year.

There’s been some progress in the greenhouse too.  I’ve been resisting going out to check every day as I know that doesn’t make seeds germinate any faster, and I was delighted to see the first fuzz of green on the compost yesterday.  This pot has Achillea in it – we have problems with slugs and snails so I am making a concerted effort to grow things that will be less tasty for the pesky critters, and they haven’t been too keen on Achillea previously so I’m hoping that’s still the case!

The tray at the back has sweet peas in it and the front tray is my climbing French beans.  They’re both just starting to show signs of life.

Rudbeckia!  I ignored my usual rule not to plant all the seeds in a packet and so potentially, there’s going to be a Rudbeckia-fest going on this Summer and Autumn!

I love these cheery orange flowers with their darker centres.

They’re also known as coneflowers and come in a variety of shades from deep red to bright orange – I like this variety called “Rustic Dwarfs” best, which isn’t too tall and I’m hoping for a garden full of them!

The wallflowers are out, or at least, they’re starting to appear.  They smell fantastic and you can usually buy them in clumps from farm shops or garden centres to plant straight into your ready to flower the next year.

Here are my onions and garlic.  They’re coming along nicely and have grown quite considerably even in the last week.  I’ve had to net them as Something has been digging in the beds (we do seem to have our fair share of Somethings here!).  I had a similar problem last year but after whatever it was had dug up my plants a couple of times, it got bored and moved on so I’m hoping that it’ll do the same this year.

The cat has recovered from his encounter with a Something that I told you about last week.  Animals do generally seem to heal very quickly, don’t they, and he didn’t need to wear his “cone of shame” for very long which was good news.  The dog doesn’t seem any worse the wear for eating the Something, although he is clearly getting very fed up of his exclusion diet.  I’m not surprised, really.  Chicken feather kibble wouldn’t be floating my boat either.  He’s taken to licking the kitchen floor tiles which, if it wasn’t so unhygienic, would be a big help as I wouldn’t have to mop the floor, but as it is I’m having to do it even more often.  Back to the vet’s next week – fingers crossed it’s time to start re-introducing things he likes to eat!

More flowers!  These miniature daffodils couldn’t decide which side of the fence to grow …

and for the first time in a long time I’ve got miniature irises too.  I didn’t plant these bulbs until weeks after they should have gone into the ground so I’m really pleased to see them!

I’ve suddenly found myself between knitting projects a little bit … well, not really as there are always WIPs to finish off and a huge pile of darning that I’m ignoring in the hope that the darning fairy will come and do it for me (no luck so far!).

I finished my husband’s purple socks at long last.  Hooray!  He was very pleased with them and of course was far too busy to pose in them for me to take a photo, so here’s the one that you’ll be seeing on Instagram soon enough if you follow me there 😉

No, they’re not blocked although they are on blockers for the photos.  I don’t tend to bother blocking socks unless they’re a gift or need to be photographed for a pattern – my husband isn’t bothered about blocked socks either, they just go straight on his feet!

I’ve finished the Wildflower sock I was making as well.  I’ve reinforced the toe with heel stitch because I’ve got pokey toes – there’s a tutorial on how to do that here if you have pokey toes too!  I’ve got the second sock to knit and then that pair is done … that may well end up being my car knitting for next week when small daughter is back at school as she won’t be getting the bus again for some time.  School runs do eat into your day but I’m trying to look at them as a reminder to take the dog out for an early walk and extra knitting time in the afternoon so it doesn’t feel quite so bad.

I’ve also fished out this sock which was languishing on needles in a project bag.  It’s my Falling Hues pattern from the new Seasons pattern book – I started this before the yarn was ready so that I would know what the pattern looked like, and obviously couldn’t show you earlier!  I’ve made one sock and this one is on the go now so there’s a good chance I will actually make the pair for myself.  If nothing else, I want to know what it feels like to wear possum yarn!  Pam sent me this from New Zealand to try out about a hundred years ago and it’s about time it made it’s way into my sock drawer!

Yes, I am knitting this sock using magic loop.  No reason other than that I like a change every  now and again.  I have to be careful as my tension is tighter with magic loop, and I’m hoping that using it will encourage me to hurry up with it as that’s the needle I like to use for my sock toes on other socks!

Finally, this is still on my needles.  This is the jumper I was working on – the pattern is Painted Hills by Kay Hopkins and I was pleased with the way the pattern was progressing … but those stripes!

They’re the reason this yarn (discontinued Sirdar Peru) hasn’t been made into anything previously.  I was hoping that they would look better as the jumper grew but I was starting to feel that they looked more like prison attire … big daughter said I would look like a Fimble (a children’s TV character) …

and that was it.  It’s been unravelled.  I still like the pattern very much so I’m not giving up (and especially not after it took me about 17 goes to get the short row yoke finished) but I can’t be doing with the yarn like that so I’m going to try helical knitting with 3 balls to try to break the stripes up.  I’m not a huge fan of pooling either and there’s a risk that might happen instead, but it’s got to be better than looking like I’m going to break into a song about feeling happy when I’m wearing my wellies or whatever it is they sing about!

Right then, I think that’s me for this week.  Fish and chips for tea tonight – we always have some kind of fish on Fridays, not because we’re particularly religious but because it makes for easy meal planning to have the same thing on certain days so it’s fish on Fridays, curry on Saturday night (currently), roast dinner on Sundays … we’ve been trying out a Hello Fresh box delivery over the last couple of weeks (thanks to a hefty sign up discount code – don’t worry, it’s not an affiliate thing, I just thought we’d give it a go) and that’s been an interesting experience – I’ll tell you about that another day.

Hope you have a lovely weekend, whatever you’re up to!