that London

We’ve spent a day in that London, over the weekend.

We went to the museum of London, ate dim sums for lunch, walked around St Pauls and across the millennium bridge.
We had cocktails in the Oxo tower bar (son had been practising drinking with his little finger stuck out for some time now..), had a quick look around Covent Garden, walked to China town, and bought some nice bowls, then walked to Trafalgar Square, and popped into the National Gallery to make sure my Renoir is still ok.

Then bought a picnic to have on the train home.

Safe to say, we did too much – I nearly broke my son, and himself and I found we had set into a fixed shape by the end of the train journey. Perhaps we need to learn how to have time off without filling it with something else exhausting..

But it was good. And we agreed we would do it all again.

Maybe after a rest.

toadspawn

Last week and this week we have seen a lot  of loving going on in the pond, and now there are ribbons of toadspawn all over.

The toads were late to arrive at the party, but they might have had it right, as the frogspawn got frozen solid, snowed on, and went manky – and I think frog numbers could be down, but the newts and toads chose their time more wisely – and at the moment the sun is hot, the newts are sunbathing, the toads are lower down in the cooler water, the party is over… and the pond is toad-pole and newt pole (what do you call baby newts?) nursery to be.

dragon slaying, again

We celebrated St George’s day in the traditional (for us) way – by slaying the dragon, that is having the ‘dragon’ menu at a local Thai restaurant, along with my family.

It started as a coincidence, and is now tradition. And we have been doing this for enough years that they recognise us and the fact we celebrate this way.

Which leads to a strange conversation with the lovely Thai restaurant owner.. with us trying our best to answer her questions; yes we celebrate him for England,  but he was Lebanese, and he killed  the dragon to rescue a maiden but no that story isn’t actually true, with my son chirping in commenting over which part of the dragon we must be eating at each course… (dragon wings taste a bit like duck, it turns out)

It was a good meal and a good evening

glastonbury tor

Nice weather at last, and conveniently placed on a day we were all free, we had a jolly and went to Glastonbury to walk up the tor.

Driving from Devon , we get to see the tor for miles before we actually get there, and we have passed it often, by moonlight, early morning sun, or rising out of mist, but today we chose cool but sunny weather. It is only half an hour of uphill, and that is if you choose the long way,  but you really don’t want to be doing that in the rain, and a clear day is needed for that view. Lovely.

inventing patchwork

Sometimes you find you end up doing the same thing as other people for all the same reasons. Take patchwork, I had always seen it as a hobby whereby people took a few different types of material, cut it up, then reassemble it back into material. Often making quilts.  I can see the attraction, but not desperately calling me.  Each to their own I guess.
Then my son requested a new swim bag. Blue. As far as he is concerned everything ought to be blue. So I had a hearty delve in the fabric stash, only to find a distinct lack of decent quantities of blue material. I do however have lots of bit and pieces because, as previously mentioned, I am a hoarder.

I came up with this cunning idea.. if I stitched the material together, even worked on a simple design, rather than looking like a bag botched together from rags, it would like a deliberate plan, whilst using up oddments. Clever me! – that is until I realised I had reinvented patchwork – because that is the truth of it, a way of using up scraps.

So here it is, a bag made out of parts of 2 maternity dresses, some old swimming trunks (nice shark design) and fully lined out of old shirt material.

Yes a realise it could with pressing – but it is not going to happen! – Son was delighted with the result.

empty beds

Saturday saw us having an actual warm day.  Sunshine and everything – it’s been so long we had forgotten what it was like. Timely though, as our son wanted to do some gardening and we had given him a patch of land to plant and keep as he liked.  Not only did this make him very happy, but less lawn to cut cannot be a bad thing. He set to and cleared his patch and is making big plans.

Meanwhile we have been expanding the veg beds in the garden, with a view to having less in the remaining land and thus more grazing.  The beds are taking shape nicely, and himself always says they look their best without vegetables messing up their appearance!

And, worryingly, this might be the case it is so cold it would just be wrong to sow many things yet – I made a note last year to sow squash seeds by mid April – but that seems a fantasy at the moment. As it is I have tomato seedlings shivering in the propagators.  The forecast is for milder wetter weather and we could do with some to get the grass growing – and to think in previous years we have had the sheep shorn by now!

Branscombe

Yesterday, the first guaranteed day of sunshine in forever, we planned a family day out.. and went to Branscombe.

Beautiful place, with a long shingle beach, which we walked all the way along to the headland, which was tiring, but broken up by the need to search for stones with holes in, typical of flint beaches (lots) and fossils (a few bivalves)

Then back along the cliff top – completely different kind of tiring – replacing ankle turning knee busting shingle for cardio workout hills (- and I had told himself I was well enough for a ‘bit of an amble..’)

Then home fresh faced with the happy glow of having got some exercise, felt the sun on our skin (if just faces) and good family time.  And obviously seized up and achy.. but it was worth it.