There has at long last been a break in the rain! There’s also been glimpses of the sun, and for a couple of days I’d even go as far as saying it was sunny. Whether or not spring is really on its way or if the weather is fooling us, I’m not so sure but I am glad to see the cheerful snowdrops and even more cheery daffodils appear in the hedgerows.
Our heating is fixed, and it’s stayed working better than it ever has which is even better news. I’m not looking forward to the bill coming in though, as I suspect it will be more than it usually would be, but life, hey. We’ve spent afternoons and early evenings watching the Six Nations tournament, and have quite gotten into the Premier League darts matches each week too, and we’ve finally started on the second season of The Night Manager - though we had only just watched the first one!
There’s been more speedwatch sessions, and the traffic is still high, and faster than it should be. In one of our sessions the highest speed we recorded was 59 mph, and it isn’t the first time one of our volunteer group has recorded that level of speed, which is shocking for a 30 mph limit - or it is to me anyway.
Somewhere along the way this month I seem to have crocked my ankle, or more specifically my achilles, and I’m not sure how which is odd as I’d expect something dramatic for the amount of pain there’s been. But some rest, my trusty Italian ankle support and putting my foot up and a painkiller or two has taken the soreness down many notches, what really seemed to have fixed it though is one of my regular massages. To be honest I wasn’t sure if I would be able to bear anyone touch it at one point, so for this gentle, recuperating massage to have had the effect it has has been wonderful.
I had a day in London at the Garden Press Event speaking to suppliers and leading figures in the garden industry, learning lots and with plenty more to share from the day in the next few weeks. That same day my blog turned thirteen, a fully fledged teenager now which hardly seems possible. To celebrate I picked up some glorious cut flower hyacinths, which I’ve never seen as cut flowers before, little did I know that my challenges with drooping hyacinths were about to start!
To round off the day in London I visited the most fabulous haberdashery just off Oxford Street, all the time wondering why I didn’t know of MacCulloch & Wallis while I lived in London - and more amazingly, I left without a purchase too. Then we headed to The Barbary in Covent Garden for dinner, which was fabulous and a much smaller than we expected restaurant.
It’s been a busy month in our home too, with a couple of new blinds fitted on the small but long front windows and the blue chandelier was assembled and installed - and we love it.
I’m not sure our electrician loved putting it up quite so much, but he agrees it’s a good addition to our stairway. We gambled on the length, reducing the drop by 50 cms, gauging this just by him holding the wire in place, and we got it right first time, which he definitely was pleased about, but I know if it wasn’t right he would have insisted on changing it. But phew, from us all in this case!
We also took delivery of our new sofas, much earlier than expected. They were due towards the end of March, but the company are ahead of themselves at the moment and so they’re here already - and have only been here a day or two, but even on the day they were delivered they just felt right for our space.
We’d hoped to book a decorator in before they arrived, and decide on the colour scheme too - but we haven’t, and so we’ll sort that out another time. In some ways it’s good to have them so we can be as sure as we can be that the colour we finally go for works, but in the meantime our house is currently auditioning as a sofa showroom and a cushion mountain!
I’ve finished the last of my ‘stretch project’ quilts, which I’m glad about as they really have dictated my sewing time, and I really have so much more that I want to sew. I will still sew more charity quilts, but not on the scale and voracity that I have this past year.
Finishing the last of my one-a-month-charity quilts also means I’ve completed the last mystery block of the month, so now I have twelve blocks to assemble into a quilt top which has taken some maths to make sure I have enough material to carry out my plans. I’ll be sharing more soon on both of these year long projects, so watch out for those posts.
I’ve realised that over the past year I’ve not found as much time as I’d like to ‘play’ when crafting, and trying out things I’ve not done before, this month though I’ve had more time for that and have found myself tackling a series of sewn miniature items. They’re not perfect and I’ll find a use for them (and will most likely share more here at some point) but it’s been good to experiment and get things out of my head!
I’ve had a request for a rosette from my mum, so I need to make her one of those for an upcoming family wedding - which is also a good reminder that I need to sort myself out an outfit too, but it’s a tricky one as April weather could be literally anything - wish me luck!