Falling behind

Hi everyone - I've been out of the loop for a while and missing all my blogging friends. I've tried catching up with some of your posts and left a few comments but hopefully I'm now back with avengence.  An incredibly busy couple of weeks has left me falling behind with no time for relaxing or posting.

Thank you for all your lovely comments on the birth of our darling grand-daughter W. She is adorable and has now regained her birth weight of 6lbs 2ozs. She had been poorly with an infection after her birth, having to remain in hospital for a few days and returning every 12 hours for antibiotics to be administered in the canula they put in her arm. Thankfully she is now better and settling down to life with her family.I don't as a rule put photos of the grand-children here without their parents' consent so for the moment there are none. She has a mop of jet black hair, dark blue eyes and a lovely dimple on her cheek. Both her siblings started life with black hair and are now both blonde so who knows?

The pram blanket did get finished and I must admit I was pretty chuffed with the end result, never having attempted anything like it before. I can't believe that joining all the squares and then putting a border around it took so long. Anyway it's now taken pride of place on the pram.

 

 

 

 

My Uni course is absolutely great, Renaissance Art History, and I'm loving it. BUT - it is very time consuming as there is an awful lot of reading, much more than I've ever had, so consequently things are falling behind. Hopefully, if I pass, this will be my last year which ends in May with a 4,500 word dissertation.

It does have its good side though. As you know I love visiting London and so I have a very good excuse to visit many of the galleries in the coming months - such as The National Gallery, The Courtald Gallery in Somerset House as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum. I've just booked to visit the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace with a friend in a few weeks time to view their Northern Renaissance Art collection.

On another note, the recent winds have meant the remaining leaves have finally fallen and I was so surprised yesterday to find they had somehow blown into something similar to this. I just neatened it and put the hole in the middle and ran indoors for my camera before the wind wooshed it away again!!

 

I'm now off to Norfolk for three days. My daughter and her family are on a boat on the Broads and John and I are staying at a hotel in Wroxham, where they'll be moored outside for a few days. Can't wait.

A big welcome to my two new followers, Cathi and Janys. I can't see a link to your blogs so if you leave a comment hopefully I should be able to link back to you.

 

Have a good week and I'll see you soon.

Patricia 

Granny squares - aptly named

I have been furiously making these granny squares for the last week for a pram blanket for a special baby due on the 19th October. I finished the squares and was about to put it all together when the baby beat me to it and arrived a week early! I'm pleased and proud to announce

Our fifth grand child was born yesterday

  

 

and we are over the moon with the newest addition to our family. An adorable little girl W who weighed in at 6lbs 2ozs - a third child for my son and daughter-in-law and little sister to A and S..

Hopefully, photo of the finished blanket and maybe a picture of W to follow.

Have a good weekend

Patricia x

One of those days

Have you ever had one of those afternoons when nothing goes right? Chasing your tail to get things done? Well today was one of those days for me. I wasn't going to write a post as I've been trying to catch up with some housework before settling myself down to do some studying. Before long however tiredness swept over me and I started to drop off on the sofa - possibly because the central heating was just a tad too warm - who knows. Anyway to rally myself around I made a cuppa. Getting the milk from the fridge I spotted these - big mistake.

The label said grill for a few minutes - but being impatient and short of time I put them in the toaster  BAD IDEA!

It was obvious straight away that they had got stuck inside the thing. So switched it off, pulled out the plug and proceeded to pull them out. BUT they were having none of it.

I shook it

 

and bashed it

 



Put things in it (I know you're not supposed to but I was getting desperate)

 

It took four types of implements to dig the things out

By now I was getting bored with the whole idea of my cuppa
which incidentally was now stone cold.

 

 

In all, this procedure took almost an hour from start to finish -  AND to top it all, just when I thought it's all over and I'd cleared up all the mess, I thought I'd better switch the toaster on again just to make sure it was all clear and the SMOKE ALARM kicked in - clearly it wasn't empty of its contents after all!!

 

So - the moral of the story is - when you feel sleepy in the afternoon, just go with it. I could easily have used that hour to have a nice cosy doze and feel refreshed afterwards instead of fighting the toaster. I'm an hour short of reading - and now I'm writing THIS. Oh well there's always tomorrow.

 

 

 

Oh and by the way I did eventually get my tea and guess what - put the silly pancakes in the microwave - 20 seconds job done!!

 

Have a good week

 

Patricia 

A taste of France...

It's taken a whole week to get back to some kind of normality after our trip to France. Our feet haven't touched the ground since we got back and the week has flown by. Anyway here's  a taster of our stay in Provence.

We stayed in Avignon a beautiful and fascinating city known to be the cultural heart of the Provence region. The Palace du Papes was the headquarters of the Catholic Church from 1309. The building's heavy fortification reflects the violent nature of 14th century religious life.

 

 

 

 

 

Visiting The Luberon area was a delight - this regional nature park which is known to be one of the most appealing areas of Provence with its limestone cliffs, river-hewn gorges, rugged peaks and rustic villages, was the inspiration for Richard Mayle's 'A Year in Provence'

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the street life in France where markets are held regularly and pavement cafes are in abundance. Two in particular were Arles and Uzes.

 

How lovely to be able to buy your fresh fruit, vegetables, cheeses and meat from the local market. We don't have anything like that locally except perhaps for Borough Market in Southwark.

 

I do love an Antique Shop - and this is something that the French do well - many village streets were lined with shops and stalls selling all manner of vintage goods.

 

We were very lucky with our weather, the sun shining most of the time, so we were able

 to indulge in quite a lot of Alfresco dining - just heaven.

I hope you've enjoyed this little taster - no pun intended - and I'll continue with more of our travels in a day or two.

Bye for now