This July...

It’s been a busy July, and time has flown by and felt in short supply. So much so that I’m writing this post a day later than I usually would, but sometimes life just happens doesn’t it?

This month we’ve celebrated three years in our new home, and that too has just flown by. I’ve spent a week cat sitting for our neighbour’s two beautiful kitties who rather obligingly made themselves available for tickles, conversations and extra treats every time I visited, which was much appreciated.

It’s continued to be hot - parts of the UK are on its fourth heatwave, but it’s just three for us - and that’s three too many in my book. Watering the pots in the garden has become a nightly thing, and I’m now resolved more than ever to get things out of pots and into the ground - but of course it’s still too hot, and the ground too hard, to dig any new beds so my genius plan, hatched way back in May is still on hold. But I am starting to harvest a some tomatoes, with more to come and a few strawberries too so it’s not all bad.

We’ve celebrated MOH’s birthday and this year he chose to cook picanha steak (also known as top or rump cap) on the barbecue. Our favourite farm shop butchered the steak for him and we knew it’d be good, and it was. Sadly though the gas on the barbecue ran out just as MOH started cooking, so everything had to move indoors instead. New gas was bought very soon afterwards too!

We’ve been watching the World Cup - I’d say we enjoyed England’s last game against France but perhaps that’s not quite the word, it was definitely nail biting and probably the best game of the competition, and at least we ended up on the right side of the unusually high 6-4 scoreline.

July is also the month of the Tour de France and so that’s also been on our screens, sometimes during the day when we’ve been avoiding the high temperatures outside. In cycling news closer to home MOH is back cycling with his club after his recent health scare and he achieved his next target on his personal recovery plan to complete the annual London to Dunwich overnight cycle, which at just over a hundred miles is no mean feat.

And with it being July, there was another update to dad’s birthday bunting - he had the best birthday present ever he told me, along with his drill and new shirts, and that was me taking him to the tip so he could get rid of the glass from the greenhouse which he’d removed after we’d been encouraging him not to use it anymore. It’s the small things, it seems.

At the start of the month even I dusted off my bike and we cycled to two nearby villages. In Elston we had a look around the allotments at their open day, and then we cycled onto nearby Sibthorpe for the last weekend in their open gardens series raising money for the church bells. They’d opened every month for five months, and it’s been great to see how their gardens progressed over the month, and quite honestly to see in some local back gardens. There’s a lot to be said of learning from your neighbours, especially which plants work well and it’s been great to meet the villagers opening up their gardens too. And there was huge slices of cake available in the church too, well, it would have been rude not to.

ON THE PLOT AT ELSTON

SIBTHORPE OPEN GARDENS

The logistics for MOH’s epic cycle ride were obviously more tricky than when we lived in London, and so we combined it a few nights in Suffolk, staying in Framlingham which is a pretty little town, and probably most well known for its famous resident, Ed Sheeran. So while we were there we took a stroll to see the infamous ‘castle on the hill’ but opted not to go in, and instead visited Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh and on the way home Ickworth House.

THE CASTLE ON THE HILL, FRAMLINGTON

SNAPE MALTINGS

We hadn’t been to Snape Maltings for a while - since 2014 it turned out - and it was good to revisit to see what was new, and like the sculpture above what remained in place. We stopped at Ickworth House on our journey home, which appeared to break our journey into two equal sections, it too was a place we’d been before on a couple of occasions, the last time though was in 2017 when I expect the gardens, the grass especially, were a lot greener than on this visit.

ICKWORTH HOUSE

At my various sewing group meetings this month I’ve spent some time ‘playing’ with some of the pre-cut squares and sewn flying geese I picked up from someone else’s stash - though still need to finish those, and I’ve added to the number of completed houses for my villages, so village quilts 2 and 3 should be completed soon I hope. My aim is to finish them by the Linus Project sewing day at the start of September, so that they too can be donated with the more slowly growing this year pile of charity quilts that I have. It was great to take mum along with me to the Saturday morning sewing group, and even better when she offered to iron my blocks - she knows I’m not an ironing fan.

To end the month I spent the day at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham with my SIL and we saw so many beautiful quilts, more than I could photograph to be honest. But so much inspiration and talent on show, and of course there were a few purchases made throughout the day, as well as the workshop to create our own appliquéd guinea fowl.

Mine still has a way to go before it remotely resembles the gaggle of guinea fowl it’s supposed to, but with two irons between around twenty of us there was always going to be a queue. But I’ve relearnt and refreshed the technique from my rustic barn at a previous craft show, and so it’s something that I’ll finish at home.

NOT QUITE A GAGGLE OF GUINEA FOWL YET

Soon hopefully - and before I lose all the beaks!

And maybe time might slow down a little in August to give me a fighting chance…

This June...

It’s been a tad warm hasn’t it?

We started the month in France, in a-much-cooler-than-it-had-been-the-week-before outskirt of Angers, which we were pleased about. The temperatures prior to our arrival were in the high thirties, and even on holiday, that’s not good. And then when we got back we had another heatwave, with another forecast for the start of July, so yes it’s been quite warm overall.

We made it to France travelling by train which turned out to be a complete breeze, and more importantly no airports! I don’t dislike airports as such, but travelling by train is much more preferable.

Anyway from Newark we travelled to Kings Cross before popping over the road to St Pancras International and the Eurostar to Paris. We stayed in Paris overnight, then headed to Angers on the train for the next five nights staying in a fabulous chateau, before getting the train to Tours for a couple of nights making time for some wine tasting and our second visit to the Chateau de Villandry (so much more on this to come!) before heading back to Paris for our last night before jumping on the Eurostar, and then another train back home.

THE VIEW FROM OUR WINDOW AT THE CHATEAU DES FORGES, ANGERS

I’d intended to travel light, as I would be the one manhandling the case, and even though we took stuff out as we were packing, it turned out that it wasn’t that light at all - in fact the case was actually rather heavy. Moving it up and down stairs at stations both here in Newark and in Paris was hard work, though thankfully I was offered help which I was very grateful to accept.

We celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary while we were away in a fantastic restaurant found my MOH, he’s very good at this and he found some brilliant restaurants during our trip. Though we arrived slightly later than intended and a little flustered as we thought we knew where it was, but had misremembered the way there. Oops.

The food here was brilliant though, as was their artwork.

A MEAL WITHOUT WINE, IS LIKE A DAY WITHOUT SUNSHINE.

Since we’ve been home we’ve been busy too - well apart from in the heatwave when we’ve been like hermits hiding indoors in the hottest parts of the day, then when it’s cool enough to do things not really doing too much as heatwaves are tiring. So we’re glad for some respite from the heat, which you may already have gathered.

I had a press day at Barnsdale Gardens in Rutland, which is relatively local to home, and I was also invited to the Gardeners’ World Live preview event and a day at the show too. Both of which were fantastic events, with plenty of inspiration everywhere you looked. I’ve more to share from both of these visits, but I’ve already shared my highlights from this year’s Gardeners’ World Live.

We were in Birmingham for England’s first World Cup game, and it all went rather well didn’t it? We had a fantastic table, with a view of the match, in our regular haunt of The Button Factory in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter. And the game was a good one, and really gave us hope for England setting the tournament alight, but the following two games weren’t quite that and were as fractious as usual to watch. Let’s hope England remember the highs from that first game and show more of that for the remaining of the tournament, so that it can finally come home (for the men, the women’s team have already got that sorted!)

A GLIMPSE OF OUR FANCIER THAN EXPECTED ROOM IN BIRMINGHAM, WHERE WE COULD HAVE WATCHED THE FOOTIE FROM THE BATH IF WE CHOSE TO (WE DIDN’T!)

I’ve also lost some of my gained responsibilities this month, which is great news. Just this week MOH has reclaimed grass cutting, and since we’ve been back from holiday he’s back on his usual daily breakfast making. It’s great, not least because it means I can turn my attention to the rest of the garden, and because I’m still not good at mornings, but also because he’s so much better. We’ve been back to the hospital for his six week check, and they don’t want to see him again until his annual check up next year. Phew.

My car gave me a little scare though, with a warning triangle appearing alongside the ‘I need a service’ spanner. The manual was most alarming saying to stop driving and contact the dealership straightaway. So once home I did call the company, and was reassured that it was related to the service and the spanner, and as that was booked already there was nothing to worry about. And indeed there wasn’t, and until I’d read the manual I wasn’t that worried, but with two longer than usual journeys ahead of me I wanted to be sure I’d get there (and back).

I said last month that I knew exactly what holiday embroidery I was taking with me before I knew what clothes would be in the suitcase, and it was even better to actually do some of this while we were away, either on the train or just in quiet moments. It’s not finished, but I’ve made huge amounts of progress. Though needless to say I’ve not touched it since we’ve been home!

SEWING ON THE EUROSTAR HOME

In two pieces of shock (sewing) news I have almost finished my summer dressing gown - which has taken way less time than I expected, and really is much needed on those warmer days, and I’ve finally started my Flying Geese quilt too. As I said at my sewing group last week, now it’s started it’s a project rather than just a pile of material!

I know, I’m not even sure who I am either. Though of course I do have other projects still to finish, and yet to start as well as some new ones appearing on the horizon, so it’s all ok really! I’ll share more on both of these shock sewing projects here soon I’m sure.

One of the new projects that my head is grappling with arose from a workshop I went to last week, where I picked up many tips and tricks for making a pattern from clothes already in my wardrobe, and if I can make it work for the well worn and much loved dress I have in mind, then my mind will officially be blown. I have the start of the pattern, and I have some material I can test it out with - so hopefully I will have another version of this dress, which looks a lot smarter than the one I have and love sometime soon.

And that’s not all, today I’ve ordered my greenhouse after much (and a couple of years) deliberating. But with a price rise imminent (tomorrow!) I snuck in right at the last minute. I’m not rushing into this at all though, I have opted for the delayed delivery so within the next six months, my greenhouse will arrive.

Hopefully that gives me plenty of time to come up with a plan, that’s more adventurous than ‘sticking it in the garage’!

This May...

Thankfully May has gone more to plan than last month, although the high temperatures towards the end of the month have thrown a spanner in the works slightly; while it’s been nice to see the sun having temperatures in the thirties on quite a few consecutive days it has meant I haven’t achieved as much as I’d hoped to. But then again it’s my birthday month and if you can’t take your birthday month more easy, then when can you?

I’ll share more next week about the genius plan for my garden, which was necessitated by the influx of quite a few unplanned plant purchases - some were for charity, and others were just too gorgeous to leave behind! But my plans are on hold until the warmer weather subsides a bit, as digging a new bed isn’t going to happen, not least because the ground is harder than it was!

The warmer weather has meant plenty more barbecues though, so that is definitely good news. Even though MOH is on what he’s called ‘light duties’ by the end of the month he was definitely up for barbecuing, and back to washing up. Result!

At the start of the month it was all about MOH taking it easy, which meant I had a lot more chores on my plate - obviously I didn’t mind and I know he’d do the same for me, but it was a lot. I learnt some new life skills this month, nothing too spectacular - well apart from cutting the grass which I haven’t done in over 20 years, but there was also charging the Ring doorbell (and the treasure hunt for the screwdriver), plus lifting everything because MOH couldn’t. But as I said by the end of the month he’s doing so much better - I know I’m being vague, but as I said before it’s not my story to share, but also I can’t write my blog completely ignoring it. So this is where we are right now, maybe another time I’ll share more.

My self imposed plant buying ban has well and truly been broken since our visit to the Newark Garden Show last month. I’ve bought some dahlias and cosmos on our visit to Flintham Hall which opened its Walled Garden as part of the National Garden Scheme for charity.

We also went along to the monthly Gardener’s Market at relatively nearby West Bridgford - and worked out afterwards we could get the bus next time, which would definitely help with my plant influx! We’d not been to West Bridgford before and it was great - it reminded us of a London village, full of the hubbub a Saturday morning brings and we stopped for brunch in Cote, something I’m sure we’ll be doing again. So discovering the Gardener’s Market on social media was a very good thing!

Our holiday plans have progressed and we are off to the Loire to stay in a chateau or two, breaking the journey with an overnight stop in Paris each way. There won’t be any cycling but we’re hoping for some walking, plenty of relaxing and temperatures that aren’t in the thirties!

We’re restricting ourselves to one large sized case, and a hand luggage size case as between as that’s as much as we can manage, so that’s made planning what to take more focussed than normal. Usually my packing ethos is ‘put it in, just in case’ but not this time, although I fully expect still to take too much. The more challenging thing is my shoe choices will be limited, which for anyone that knows me knows this will be hard - I’m better than I used to be, but then again I am the girl that took seven pairs of shoes (plus trainers) for a two week netball tour to South Africa, and I wore the lot of them!

It won’t surprise you that while I don’t know exactly what clothes I’m taking, I do know exactly what my holiday sewing project will be - that’s all packed!

I’ve mostly been slow stitching this month, and really enjoying it. I haven’t made too much progress on the dream birds pouch from last month as I decided I needed a new pouch for my holiday, as you do. And the pouch kit in my Advent Calendar seemed to be just the thing, though I was missing a piece of material, but sourcing another from my stash wasn’t an issue.

All was going well until the instructions said ‘quilt how you want’ which my brain took to mean use hand sewing to embellish the fabric and quilt it at the same time, so that’s what I did (see below), and once I’d done that the newly-substituted fabric looked plain by comparison, so that got a similar treatment.

I’m sure I’ll manage to complete it in time though…

I have managed to complete my mystery block of the month quilt top, and it’s looking great. I ummed and ahhed about the borders and how wide they should be and eventually made a decision to increase each one by an inch. I finished it at patchwork group this month, which was a really sensible thing to do as the village hall floor is way more spacious than mine!

Though now I’ll be putting pressure on myself to baste, quilt and bind it so it is really finished. But that means a temporary rearrangement of my craft room as that’s a lot of quilt and once it’s through the machine it needs to go somewhere, and the ten inches or so I have behind my sewing machine isn’t going to be enough!

But that’s at least next month’s problem.