I ended last month’s post on needing to sort myself out a wedding outfit, thankfully that turned out to be a relatively easy task in the end. I saw a dress online that I loved and ordered it, but when it arrived it was lovely, but just wasn’t right - a tad too flouncy for me, and I knew that I’d be fiddling with it more than I ought to be. It was the type of dress that was all chiffon and floaty, but it wore me rather than me wearing it if you know what I mean, so it went straight back.
So I took myself into Newark and wandered into the posh dress shop and well basically stood there looking overwhelmed which was absolutely the clue the ladies in the shop needed to jump into action. I tried on many dresses and left with one of the first ones I tried on.
I have a hat (well on a headband), a jacket or a silver cardy, one or other or both depending on the weather - it is in Wales in early April, so you never know. I have a couple of options on shoes - as you’d expect, and have also purchased a lovely green bag, and a pashmina too. So I’m all set.
Well apart from the food shop - we have three nights in an AirBnB with my parents and my brother and his wife. But that should be easy enough, shouldn’t it?
At times it’s felt like spring has arrived - and we’ve had lunch outside at one of our favourite cafes - and yet at other times it feels like winter is well and truly back. But there is hope of more blue skies to come, as the garden is also starting to wake up.
There’s been a couple of torrential downpours, almost storm-like conditions and way more than ‘April showers’ and we woke one morning to further issues with our heat pump, with it tripping the RCD which wasn’t great. Thankfully this was easy to resolve and shouldn’t happen again.
One of our old - and the most used of the two - sofas has been collected, which leaves one to get rid of which I’m hoping we’ll be able to give to someone who needs a sofa - but that won’t happen until I’ve sorted that out obviously.
We also have a brand new road through most of the village, and right outside our front door. It meant two overnights of work but it’s worth it. We no longer have pot holes and it’s much quieter with the traffic too. Though it followed a week of overnight closures on the nearby A46 which meant increased traffic for those nights, so it’s been a long slog of interrupted sleep. But with the roadworks cleared on the A46 there’s definitely less traffic passing through the village - there’s still some speeders, and these are much more noticeable with less traffic so there’ll still be ongoing speed watch sessions I’m sure.
MOH flexed his cooking urge making slow cooked lamb shank and artichoke ragu from the Padella cook book which he received at Christmas. It tasted fabulous and while the original plan was to also make the pasta, that was shelved for another day, which is fine as I’ve got two more meals-worth in the freezer ready to go.
We’ve been out and about a fair bit this month too, even heading to Nottingham twice in a few days once to watch some Super League Netball games, and the other for Alex James’ Britpop Classical. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in and around the netball community, and even then in a totally different area, but it was great to see a friend umpiring one of the games.
We’ve been enjoying listening to Alex James’ Sunday evening show on Virgin Radio and it was great to see the Britpop Classics in person, as well as having a good old 90s singalong and bop around to the songs.
It’s been a busy month for making too. I’ve set out my quilt plans and non-quilt plans for the year and it’s helpful to have a plan. Last year my sewing was dominated by the one a month charity quilts (aka my ‘stretch’ project) so it’s good to have time to explore other things.
And I have. Already I’ve explored some miniature makes and taught myself how to use the Flying Geese rulers I’ve had for a while, and which will be a game changer for my Teal Flying Geese quilt. I’ve even finished my most recent hand embroidery project which I already love - and it’s so my colours.
I was also pleased when my skein from Vicki Brown’s 100Skeins project arrived this month in ‘my colours’ - I have no plans for this at the moment, but it’s a project that I love and I love to support. Each year Vicki dyes 100 skeins which are all different and does this with the support from backers who pledge to buy at least a skein. Times are tough right now, especially for small businesses and so I was really pleased to see this initiative continue, and it’s even better when she sends a skein that matches your preferences so well.
So that was a busy March, April is already looking just as busy but with the lighter evenings I’m here for it.