Summer days

Hi!  How are you doing?  Today’s post has come out a bit later than I intended but you’ve got it to read now 🙂  I think it’s a little late to say “white rabbits” now that we’re coming to the end of day, but happy July to you anyway!

It’s been a busy week – yes, all my weeks are busy as I like to keep myself occupied – but this has been more of an out and about one which has been nice, and more of that in a minute.

I’ve also learnt something this week!  If you remember, we’ve been talking about “pop” after I showed you a photo of a carbonated drinks that my friend Lucy and I had after a walk, and I assumed (and we all know what assumption is* 🙂 ) – that it was only known as “pop” in the UK and “soda” in the US and perhaps everywhere else.

How wrong I was!  It turns out that “pop” exists all over the world and I have so enjoyed reading your comments and finding out where you’re from and what your word for the fizzy stuff is.  I remember a similar conversation in the Winwick Mum Knit n Natter Facebook group once where many of us learnt that the Aussie word for “flip flops” is “thongs” and that amused me no end because before then, I only knew of thongs as underwear! 🙂

On Monday, I met my friend Lynne Rowe for lunch and a catch up chat.  Have you heard of Lynne before?  Her blog is KnitCrochetCreate and even if you think you don’t know of her, I bet you’ll have seen one of the many books she’s written or knitted one of her patterns – she’s designed for West Yorkshire Spinners, Scheepjes and most of the knitting and crochet magazines.  She’s also an expert tech editor and is currently working on some online courses to help brand new designers write patterns and get published, so if that sounds like something that would help you, I’d definitely go and have a look at her blog.

Not so small daughter has been learning to crochet.  The lady who owns the cafe where she has a Saturday job is an avid crafter and has both not so small daughter and the other girls who work there crocheting when they’ve got spare minutes – and she’s doing really well.  Not so small daughter can knit as well (although she’s still at that age where knitting is sooo slow compared to crochet and she needs to create things fast) and she’s been really taken by Lynne’s latest cardigan pattern which I think she would manage to knit without any problems.  It’s just squares so I think it would be great for any beginner, and definitely an improvement on dish cloths! 🙂

I’ve finished the first Autumn Leaves sock that I showed you last week …

This is going to be my new Emergency Sock to keep in the car for times when I’ve got to wait, and I cast on the second sock quickly on Thursday night so that I could take it with me on Friday when not so small daughter, her boyfriend and I drove up to Leeds to visit Leeds Beckett University.  Not so small daughter is quite used to me knitting when we’re at things like this and I know that nobody will be offended, and I’m sure her boyfriend will get used to it soon enough 🙂  I got a few rounds in whilst we were waiting for the accommodation talk to begin …

I haven’t been to Leeds in years and I was all set for us to get the train (hence being ready with my knitting) until we came to buy the tickets and they were way more expensive than the petrol and car parking would be, so we went in the car instead.  I don’t know how we are supposed to be more green when the options to car travel aren’t financially feasible.  I was very sorry that they weren’t on the way home when we got stuck in traffic on the motorway!

This month’s Monthly Musing is about our trip to Leeds – I posted it yesterday so if you go back to the home page you should see it underneath this post.

Our hot and sticky weather has cooled down now, thank goodness.  I did enjoy the sunny weather but I didn’t like the humidity that came with it so I’ve no idea how you cope if you live in a part of the world where it’s always like that in the summer.  We’ve had quite a bit of rain too, and you can see from the clouds gathering in this photo that the dog and I were in for a soaking if we didn’t get a move on!  The barley in this field has ripened to a beautiful golden colour now with all the sunshine.  The heads have turned down and as we were walking along, I heard it crackling.  It sounded like Rice Krispies – that breakfast cereal that crackles when you pour milk onto it.  I’ve never noticed this before but the wheat field further along was crackling away too.  It was like the fields were talking to me!  I googled it but could only find this blog post where someone else had heard the barley crackling, and lots of recipes for pork crackling which weren’t what I wanted 🙂

There was also this wonderful mackerel sky – I posted a photo of another that I saw on big daughter’s yoga retreat in April – doesn’t it look amazing?  The black blob in the middle is a fat wood pigeon that was balancing precariously on the electricity wires.  I hope it was admiring the sky too!

The garden is looking wonderful at the moment and I wanted to record the flowers that are out in bloom.  I thought a collage would be a good way to do it otherwise you’ll still be looking at photos long after you thought the post should have finished!  I’ve got three colours of Hemerocallis (day lilies) this year and two colours of Buddleja davidii.  The climbing roses are flowering in clusters which look amazing (and smell amazing too), and I love the way the purple Clematis tones with the silver fuzzy leaves of the Stachys byzantina (lamb’s ears).  In the middle of the collage is our Hydrangea, which has decided to be blue this year.  I like the way it chooses for itself!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, whatever you’re up to – and wishing you a lovely week next week too! xx

* the saying as I know it is that “assumption is the mother of cock up” (and perhaps a ruder word too) 🙂