Win a pair of tickets to BBC Gardeners' World Live on Sunday 18 June

*** This competition is now closed, thank you to everyone who entered ***

I’ve paired up with the team at BBC Gardeners’ World Live on this competition where you can enter to win a pair of standard adult tickets to BBC Gardeners’ World Live at Birmingham NEC. The tickets offered as the prize for this competition are valid for Sunday 18 June from 10am entry only, with a RRP of £54.00. For details of how to enter please see the ‘How to enter’ section further down in this post.

What to see at this year’s Gardeners’ World Live

• Stunning garden and planting ideas in the Show Gardens and Beautiful Borders

• Coronation inspired headline Show Garden ‘A Garden Fit for a King’ inspired by the HRH King Charles’ gardens at Highgrove

• Great shopping for plants, gardening kit, tools, equipment and more

• Stages and demo areas including a dedicated House Plants Hub

• Alfresco gardening advice with talks and appearances on Liz Earle Beauty Co.’s Botanical Show Garden with James Wong

• Grow-Your-Own talks on Lucy Hutchings’ Secret Homestead Garden

• BBC Good Food Show Summer entry with top chefs, experts and tasty shopping

• Family fun with entertainment, street food, bandstand and more.

How to enter

To enter to win a pair of standard adult tickets valid for Sunday 18 June from 10am entry only, entry leave a comment on this blog post sharing why gardens are important to you then click on the widget below and complete your entry - and get more entries by interacting on social media.

Win a pair of standard adult tickets for Gardeners’ World Live at Birmingham NEC Sunday 18 June, from 10am entry

A winner will be chosen on 28 May and contacted by email. 

Save 15% off standard adult/concession entry tickets (excluding Saturday 17 June)

You can use the discount code* GARDENS2023 for 15% off standard adult/concession entry tickets (excluding Saturday 17 June).

*Discount is valid on adult/concession standard entry tickets. Not valid on Saturday, VIP, 2-day tickets, added extras or with any other offer. 15% discount offer starts on 11 May and ends at 23:59 on 2 June 2023. £3.95 transaction fee per e-ticket order. Details correct at time of publication.

Post Comment Love 19 - 21 May

Hello there, and welcome back to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week, please remember this, posts which are older will be removed from the linky. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked and share some of that love. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

Thankfully we’ve seen an upturn in the weather this week, it’s beginning to feel like May at last. We’ve been making the most of if by sorting out our shed (it’s a never-ending task), doing some gardening and yesterday we headed out to Kent for a seven mile walk. Last weekend we even managed to cook on the barbecue - only lunch, rather than dinner, but it got its first use of the year.

This week’s photo is from our walk yesterday, which turned into a longer than expected walk as we weren’t really paying attention and headed off in the opposite direction at one point. I’ve learnt that I need some new walking boots too, there’s nothing worse than hobbling at the end of the walk (and it wasn’t that bad really - but bad enough!).

But isn’t this a fabulous and typical Kent view?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Repurposing a crochet project, and getting it done

Sometimes you start a project and it goes for a while, then it stops. If you’re lucky you may pick it up again and start where you left off and all’s good, but at other times there’s nothing else for it but to start again.

I liked the yarn, and the colour variation that two strands of double knit gave, as well as the thickness which for a laptop cover I was keen to have. I like the pattern. I’d crocheted a baby blanket in this pattern previously - the baby is now two and a half! - but I couldn’t get into the flow for my laptop cover, which I so desperately wanted.

I know right, it didn’t make sense.

So I frogged it.

Frogging is a crochet slang for ripping it out - ribbit, ribbit - so frogging it, it makes me smile every time.

So with a large ball of wool, I started a granny square. I wanted something that didn’t take much thinking, and as this was the first time I’d really picked up my hook since last summer, I wanted to see progress quickly.

And I did.

As it grew the colours by chance formed themselves into pretty even blocks of colour - I’d like to claim I planned this, but it was a fortuitous fluke.

My very loose plan was to make the square big enough so that when folded into an envelope-ish shape it would hold my laptop. As it grew, there was much trying it for size until it was done.

And just look how much wool from the previous project I had left. Clearly granny squares are less yarn hungry than my previous pattern, but thankfully the double thickness yarn gave the padding I wanted. I’ll use this cover when I pack my laptop into a weekend bag, so it doesn’t need to be as robust as if I were carrying it around everyday.

With a button sewn on - contrasting of course - it was done, and in super quick time. And I’ve one less Work-in-Progress (WIP) on the go too!