A little bit of everything!

Yet again, it's been a week or so since my last post BUT I am happy to report that a fellow 'hooker' from our charity knitting group on moneysavingexpert.com came to visit us at the weekend!  Check out her great blog, Chalky's World (link in the sidebar). From that you will see that Chalky and her husband divide their time between Spain and the UK; they are driving back to the UK from Spain, and part of their journey took in our little bit of France, so I nervously but boldly invited them to stay for the night and they did!  They arrived on Sunday and you'd have thought we'd known each for years! You couldn't hope to meet a lovelier friendlier couple. We had a lovely time. Sadly, the weather was cooler than it should have been but we still managed to show them a little bit of the area and, in the evening, we sat and chatted and even did a bit of hooking - although I have to confess that Chalky did more than I did!

Here we are standing in front of their Sunshine Bus!

They came armed with some lovely home-made Seville Orange and Brandy Marmalade, Aubergine Chutney (both delicious),  a bottle of Spanish Rioja, and a bottle of Spanish Brandy,  some fresh lemons, some of which I made into lemonade from Lucy's lovely recipe on Attic24 - see photo. It's delicious and really easy and cheap to make, especially as it needs diluting like squash so a little goes a long way. It makes a lovely refreshing drink during this hot weather.

Another treat which Chalky sneakily left behind for me to find when they left was this absolutely gorgeous bunting. When all the renovating here is finished, I shall find the perfect place for it. Meanwhile, we have a gazebo which we will be putting up in the garden soon  - it will look lovely on that (only in dry weather, of course!).  Having Chalky and her husband here - after  months and months of chatting via the online forum - was wonderful and we thoroughly enjoyed their company.

Another pretty thing in my life right now is this lovely little dress I bought for my youngest granddaughter's first birthday in August - I have found  a pattern for a little crochet bolero that will go with it, along with a doll that I hope to make for her.

Not quite so pretty but progress nonetheless is this that the Husband has been working on outside  - it's a wall beneath a window. The left side shows the wall as it was, the right side shows it now that 'chaux' has been applied between the stones which, once dry, will make it look more.... how shall I say it?..... more organic,  I suppose.

The Husband has been working hard in the kitchen but the work in there has been so intense (and difficult to work in for me!) that he gave me the choice of a couple of  days off while he worked outside, or carry on with the kitchen. Of course, I opted for the first choice, although I know it's only putting off the inevitable!  Still, the weather is so good, he might as well make the most of working outside.

Hope the weather is good where you are!  Thanks for reading!

Hurried woman syndrome!

When I first started this blog, I had every intention of posting on regularly. Well, that has gone completely out of the window! I hadn't counted on just how few hours in the day, days in the week, and even months in the year, there really are!

I seem to do a little of everything and achieve a lot of nothing!  A little crochet but a lot of planning things to crochet - the list gets ever longer.  A lot of 'helping' the Husband with the house renovations - and a lot of clearing up and reorganising afterwards - that list gets ever longer, too. And, of course, there's the endless round of cooking, cleaning, shopping and other boringness to contend with.

However, things progress - slowly but surely.

A nice treat yesterday was some roses from a friend's garden - the pink ones are spectacular and ramble along a white wall  that really sets them off.  I found a few carnations to put with them.

These yellow ones smell delicious - a truly old-fashioned fragrance that transported me back to childhood.  Not the most beautifully-photographed, but lovely all the same.

Louis the Lazy Cat on one of the rare occasions when he's awake instead of lying practically comatose for twelve-hour stretches in any patch of sunlight he can find. He actually accompanied us outside for a stroll round the garden, but soon succumbed to his favourite pastime of yawning and looking for a comfy place to indulge in some ZZZZZs!  We've had several cats over the years, but Louis is most definitely the laziest ever! He's French, of course, and no-one in France hurries to do anything - why should he be any different?

Meanwhile, this is a bloom on an indoor hibiscus - I only wish the flowers lasted more than a day.  The plant was a birthday present last year; it was beautiful  until we went away in February and it didn't like being ignored. I was ready to throw it away but the Husband has tended it lovingly  and restored it, if not to its former glory, at least half way there. 

A relatively tidy scene on a lovely summer's day - all looks peaceful outside but chaos reigns behind the door! 







I will update on the renovation work a bit later - I have to sort through all the photos first!

Have a great day, and thanks for reading!

A Quick Update!

It's been ages since I've posted, what with one thing and another, mainly working on the house, and I also lost my internet connection at the weekend - again.  I was able to put it right over the phone with advice from the helpful chappie on the helpline; he's going to send me the instructions so that I can do it myself nex time, hopefully.

I have loads of photos to post of the house and garden but, for now, will post a photo of the tiles we have chosen for the kitchen (yes, it's nearly at the 'prettying-up' stage!)   I love the lavender and olive tiles, but I'm not that mad on the lemon one, but they come in packs of three, so I had no choice in the matter.  They are on order and should be here within ten days.  At the bottom of the photo you can just see the lovely draining board they had in the shop. No, we didn't buy that, although I fell in love with it because it's so very French!

Wool-wise, I've been making squares (for Chalky and Mrs Twins - see their links on the right), a cushion and throw for a chair I'm revamping (not finished yet), and these preemie hats which I will get posted off next week.  They are displayed on a beautiful hand-crocheted double bedspread that I picked up at our one and only charity-type shop here - it's really heavy, and is made up of no less than 672 motifs!  The clever person who made it must have loads of patience and a lot of dedication!

Anyway, the evening sun is going down but it's still casting long shadows over the distant fields, so I'm off with my camera to catch it before it finally sinks.

Thanks for reading and I hope you are all having a lovely day!