This March...

March has definitely brought with it hints, and sometimes real glimpses, of spring, including for me some random bulb discoveries around my garden. I found three pale daffodils growing up through the wallflowers, and have enjoyed watching them and the other daffodils flower. Then last week, during my first gardening stint of the year, I noticed a bluebell growing in my pot of rhubarb. It’s entirely possible that this one has long been there, and just hasn’t flowered before - though it looks a little different to the bluebells we had in our London garden.

Either way though, the random bulbs have made me smile. In fact I’ve decided I need more spring bulbs, so will attempt to remember this in the autumn when the daffodil bulbs go on sale - and I may also remember to plant them in time too, if I’m lucky.

The garden’s waking up and much more traffic

In a matter of days the small crab apple tree has gone from twigs to almost having leaves, and I know how it feels as my own wardrobe has changed, well mostly. I’ve definitely worn my jeans less especially towards the end of the month, and I’ve reminded myself I have a whole wardrobe of clothes at my fingertips to wear, rather than just look at.

March has also been a momentous month in that MOH and I made it along to our first village Parish Council meeting, which actually takes place in the next village as we don’t have a village hall, or a pub for that matter. I’m not sure why it’s taken us quite so long to make it along, and we were warmly welcomed to the just over an hour meeting.

A lot of the meeting was taken up by discussing the recently started roadworks on the nearby A46 which are scheduled to last for eighteen months, and have brought increased traffic at more often than not above the 30mph speed limit. The councillors were sympathetic and clearly frustrated as villagers (ours and other small villages) by the increased ‘rat-running’ and have organised additional speed limit reminder signs, as they promised. Of course, they’ve not really made a difference and my view is because the signs are designed to be read by pedestrians, but are really aimed at motorists driving past above the speed limit, so they’re as good as useless as there’s too much information for drivers (or any speed) to read. But at least it’s the first step that needs to be taken in the slow turning wheels of district and county council processes.

Wine, lights and art

Around the house we’ve sorted out some more effective wine storage with a new 42 space wine rack which matches a smaller one we have, and means we have plenty of space and can get rid of various cardboard boxes MOH has been storing under the stairs. It may or may not be our longer term storage solution, but it’s certainly tidied an area that needed it.

I’m also waiting on a new light for the landing, or gallery as we call it - our kitchen has a part-double height space and so the light upstairs lights both spaces each evening, especially good for when you want some light but don’t want to put the big light on. The silver light that we previously had in our conservatory decided it would work no more, and for no obvious reason. We’d had it a while and had had good use out of it, and while it’s sad to see it go (or it will be when we take it to the tip) it’s also been fun trying to source a replacement that was similar but not quite the same. One arrived last week, but the metal base was chipped and so that’s gone back and I’m waiting for its replacement - hopefully that one will have a smoother journey.

With the weather being much nicer we’ve also ventured out more, heading out to Nottingham by bus for lunch and some small errands. We planned to do some light research for a replacement kitchen sofa - the grey one photographed above is actually a garden sofa, which may finally make its debut in the actual garden. But we didn’t get as far as the sofa shop we planned to, we got as close as next door and had an on the whim visit to the art gallery next door after we saw a painting in the window from an artist we’re keen on.

We didn’t make it to the sofa shop as we ended up buying some artwork for the landing on the stairs. It’s a big space that needs something with impact, and ours is on order. It wasn’t our intention to buy this now, but when you see it and know its right, there’s no point in waiting is there?

There were some very lovely pieces in there with lots of zeroes on the end of the price tag, it isn’t one of those (sadly!) but we were given the full VIP treatment with a tea/coffee while we made our mind up and a glass of bubbly once the deal was sealed. So that should be with us next month - and at some point we’ll restart the informal sofa research too, but not just yet.

A bull and the Burrand stone

We’ve explored different river paths of the Trent in Newark starting from of all places Waitrose car park, but finding paths that cross the river making it easier to reach some of the retail parks on foot, which could be handy at times. The path went further than this, but given the sign and the fact we still had some shopping to do, here seemed as good as place to stop as any.

We joined a guided walking tour of the East Stoke Battle Fields organised and led by the parish church in Newark. It was great to hear more of the history of the area around our village, which is where the last battle of the War of the Roses took place, and to see the memorial stone which is on private property. I’ll share more about our walk later in the week, but in the meantime here’s a peek at the Burrand stone.

And of course we also had our first visit of the year to the Belton Estate, where we finally managed to revisit the conservatory, as well as seeing more of the house than ever before along with the new crafting a new narrative exhibition, but that’s not all. While in Nottingham, and before buying artwork and recovering with a pizza in Rudy’s, we popped along to the Transition & Decay exhibition in another new-to-us venue, the Nottingham Society of Artists Gallery.

TAKE HEED BY GILLI THEOKRITOFF

I’d picked up the flyer at the Newark Quilt Show earlier in the year, and we planned our trip to Nottingham to coincide with the exhibition. The piece I’ve shared above is one of the most thought provoking pieces we saw, and was MOH’s favourite - I even caught him taking some pictures of his own. It turns out this piece is by one of the tutors from the Floral Fancy workshop I attended in January, it’s a relatively small world it would seem. I’ve plenty more pictures to share from the exhibition so look out for those.

And before I go there’s a wedding in the offing for 2026 with my youngest niece and her fiancé sending out their ‘save the date’ details. You can’t beat a wedding, can you?

If you want to read my previous monthly updates in my ‘This is’ series you’re very welcome.

This February...

Well, for a short month I seem to have a packed a lot in, including my first visit to our gym - which is good news after a stuttering start to the year - and there’s been glimpses of sun too, which always makes things better.

In the garden the snowdrops which I planted last year started to emerge; a solitary flower to start with and then slowly more flowers arrived. I’m sure over the years the two clumps I have now will spread throughout the border as is their wont - and I can’t wait. My pots of daffodils and tulips are making good progress and hopefully it won’t be too long before they make an appearance.

Wildlife antics to make me smile

A bit of sun, the garden reawakening and it’s easy to really believe that spring is on its way, but I wasn’t the only one enjoying the sun, or our garden. The garden had a visit from a wayward pheasant, and my innate city-dweller will never fail to be amazed at the beauty of wildlife when you see it first-hand - the colours of its feathers in the sunlight were truly jewel like.

Our visitor didn’t seem the smartest though, seemingly bemused by its surroundings it ran along the wall a good few times, sat down for a rest, did a few more lengths of the garden at speed before deciding that up was a good option, and landed on the top of the wall, and straight over the other side!

As predicted last month we’ve been groaning at the contestant’s efforts on The Apprentice - every series I’m amazed that none of them appear to have seen the show before, so appear to have little idea of what’s going on, or what’s required. Which on reflection is not that much different to my garden visitor!

As well as a visit to the theatre in Newark to see Ben Elton - definitely a blast from the past - we’ve been following the tribulations of Drew Pritchard’s Georgian House Restoration though (thankfully) can only imagine having to deal with the highs and heartbreaks that come with such a project. Both the England performance in the Six Nations rugby and Liverpool’s challenge for the Premier League title have kept MOH shouting (quietly) at the TV at times.

London, Liberty and a Club Orange

My exploration this month has mostly been in London with my first solo trip - not a huge adventure really, but somehow its the first time I’ve ventured down on the train on my own. I spent the day at the Garden Press Event and I’ll be sharing some more posts from my day and discoveries over the next few weeks, but it was good to get out and see people from across the gardening sector and all being enthused by what the gardening year ahead has to offer.

Making the most of my day I headed over to Liberty on Regent Street on a mission. Part of that - to secure some Falcon Enamelware failed, but the other part - to acquire some Liberty fabric, was much more successful! It was only two half metres, and on first glance not the most interesting of purchases but the two intricately grey patterned fabrics will take pride of place for my longer-term project to extend my floral fancy quilt.

I love a wander around Liberty, which manages to combine really useful things, the most amazing haberdashery and fabrics (look out for that post next week) and the truly most bizarre things - anyone for a Club Orange handbag?

New machines

There’s been two new machines in my craft room this month; the Sizzix die cutting machine which I promised myself after the Floral Fancy workshop. I’d looked on eBay and was tempted but decided for the small saving and peace of mind to get a new one and to make use of the Hobbycraft online offer. I also had a bit of a result as I browsed looking for similar dies that I’d used to cut out my applique shapes, finding the exact same leaf die and a similar-enough multiple sized flower die - both of these were on sale too, and so they arrived too. I’ve had a quick test and everything’s working as it should, but most of the month has been spent on my other new arrival.

And that is my new sewing machine - I’ve opted for a Bernina in a change to my previous machine, and clearly its much more modern. I’ve a couple of projects under my belt now, and they’ve helped me get comfortable using it - though there’s nothing quite so scary as when an error flashes up on its digital display, and you know you have to fix it yourself. But that’s part of the learning process, and I’m already convinced it’s a great machine. I’ll be sharing more about those ‘try out projects’ which have both already been put to use around the house.

Having a new machine did put my quilting plans back a little, as I didn’t want to muck those up (not that I think I would have, but…), but I have finished my third charity donation quilt, and made my first block for the mystery block of the month and I’m really pleased with both of them. I’ve started the test blocks for February, and they’re challenging me more than I’d like - but I’m getting there, slowly.

So hopefully there’ll be nothing to hold me back, though I’m sure as the month’s get warmer they’ll get busier and that in itself could be a whole other kind of challenge - we’ll see.

This January...

Like many people the New Year provokes me into thinking about the year ahead and what could be different. As I hinted in my catch-up post for walking East Stoke’s lanes, I’ve been thinking about this space here and more specifically how infrequently I’ve showed up here over the past year, and how I can change that.

One of the ways is to ‘rediscover the joy’ in writing posts which all sounds very grand. You know how much I love a plan, well so far I’ve mostly stuck to it too, as I have a lot of stuff stored up to share. I’ve also realised that I’ve not been so good at those ‘life update type’ posts, and so this new series of monthly posts aims to change that, as there is always something going on. It may not be big (and quite often it definitely won’t be clever) but it is life, and very real.

I’m hoping that it won’t sink into the minutiae of detail, nor be deathly dull - but I guess you’ll be the judge of that!

January has been January-ing

It’s been a month that’s been full of coughs and colds (yes, still) with both MOH and I suffering throughout the month, which made planned appointments with the dentist and hygienist fun though thankfully we managed to navigate with said lurgies, and remarkably each of our appointments taking place when we were probably at our healthiest.

It’s not been all bad though as we’ve had a fair bit of Christmas goodies to munch through; we finished the Christmas cake after a short delay, and the last of the mince pies disappeared this week. It’s been a month for getting things done that we’ve been meaning to for a while, and a new griddle pan was part of that - we were going to replace it when we moved in eighteen months ago, but didn’t.

But it’s also been a month when venturing outside has been minimal - understandable really - though we did make it to our favourite restaurant in Newark for pie night - but after all the effort (and it really was an effort) to get the Christmas decorations down on time, they haven’t yet made it back out to the garage.

Around the house all the components for my craft room mini-revamp arrived and are now in place - I’m already loving it - it’s such a simple change to extend my desk space, but so effective.

We’ve had a couple of issues with our new build and the developers have been back to make progress on those. We’ve had a leak in our lounge, which typically only leaks when there’s really bad weather, and the developers are hopeful that they’ve solved this on their most recent visit - let’s hope so. It’s not a big leak, but of course it’s not ideal.

We’re also expecting a replacement for a failed window sealed unit in our front door, and hopefully a resolution to the main thermostat issue. The heating still works fine as we are able to control the temperature in each room downstairs individually, and separately the whole of the upstairs which has its own thermostat, but it needs fixing.

Inspired by many quilts

I’ve also been more inspired than normal by quilts this month. I spent two days at the Newark Quilt Show and consequently took way too many pictures, which I’ve not even started to edit or share yet - but I will. This year I even went armed with a ‘wish list’ and was pretty good at sticking to it too, though as ever my craft to do list is already growing!

I finished the Noughts and Crosses charity quilt, and have already started on my next one - I’m hooked (again!) This one started with these cute little houses from Sherri’s January mystery block of the month quilt over at A Quilting Life, and there’s plenty more to come, but aren’t they fab?

Impulsively I also booked myself onto a quilting workshop entitled ‘Floral Fancy’ and then spent the time leading up to it wondering if I had the skills to do it justice, and making sure I had the things listed on the requirements for the workshop. Despite being advised not to be intimidated by the long list, I was intimidated by the long list - but as it turned out I didn’t need to be at all.

It was a fabulously creative and inspiring day, and needless to say this workshop left me with even more on my craft to do list, as me being me I’m not content with just finishing the panel I started on the day, and am working out how I can extend it in my own way.

As a teaser, here’s a shot of how it started…

We definitely watch much less TV since we moved here, but this month we’ve subscribed to SkySports mainly to watch Luke Littler in the darts, but the bonus has been a fair few football games too. We won’t keep the subscription indefinitely but it’s been good to have this month, and I can see us keeping it for the winter months (especially as the deal was good).

We’ve been watching Celebrity Hunted (despite not knowing who most of the celebrities are!) and have been looking forward to the CheeseFest which is The Apprentice starting. We’re definitely not loving the upcoming changes to Discovery which results in the loss of Eurosport, which is prime viewing for MOH and the various cycling races, which to continue to watch these the option is to subscribe to TNT Sports at a much inflated price. We’ll see.

Snug as a hibernating bug

There’s been little exploring this month, though we did manage a day-late (thanks to the weather) New Year’s Day walk, but apart from a wander around Newark to see how high the Trent was by the Castle (while MOH was at the dentist) that’s been about it. Unless you count a car trip to a new part of Nottingham, and a cross-city navigation from Beeston to the Meadows for a stop in at my nearest Hobbycraft.

THE RIVER TRENT VIEWED FROM NEWARK CASTLE. USUALLY THE RIVER PATH IS BEHIND THE BARGE.

To be honest I’ve been happy enough being as snug as a hibernating bug and watching the frosts and weather from inside, though MOH less so.

I’ve a day trip to London booked for next month, which I managed to snaffle train tickets for in LNER’s sale. I’ve already got a full day planned in Islington before meeting up with MOH in the West End for dinner, and I’ve even planned in an essential stop in Liberty’s too - just me though, I’ll go before I meet up with MOH!

Let’s hope that February is healthier!