Signs of Spring

Waiting for news of 'the way out of Lockdown' - much of which seems to have already been briefed so as always will be an anticlimax.

In the meantime the blanket is finished, and the snowdrops are out.

February's delivery of flowers from Bloom & Wild was particularly good, and also included 3 tulips (not pictured) still attached to their bulbs, so lasting beautifully and will go into the garden when they have died back. 

The apple and pear trees (only one of each) need pruning, so I must garner the energy to do that soon, before the sap really starts rising. 

...oh, and we've both had the first dose of Pfizer now, and the dates for our 2nd appointments

New Year, Same Old Lockdown

 

Not a lot has happened to blog about, but the sprinkling of snow we woke up to today has at least given me a new picture to post. It's good to be more than halfway through January, and seeing a few signs of spring. 

Mr Bufo has had his first Covid-19 injection, though I'm still waiting for mine, and I've done a bit more to the 'Fruit Garden' blanket - more than this, in fact, but I haven't taken any photos of progress since 10 Jan...!

There will be 8 of the oblongs so 2 on each side, 4 of the dianthus squares as shown, and 4 chrysanthemums, which I'm in the process of doing, at the corners.

Season's Greetings

 

We had difficulty this year in keeping to our self-imposed rule of only using a photo we had taken in the current year for our Christmas card. But we decided the stars on this allium were suitable for the front, and then the inside picture is the central part of a blanket I am in the process of crocheting. Our chosen charity this year in lieu of sending commercial cards is Southampton Hospitals Charity, Intensive Care Unit.

We wish all our friends the very best Christmas possible in this strange year, and hope that 2021 will be a better one for everybody. 

At Last It's Where I Wanted It!

We made the first visit for a while to our flat in Poole, where I was finally able to get my blanket where I envisaged it from the beginning. We hadn't been down there since a flying visit in May to clear the fridge/freezer, once restrictions on how far we could drive were eased. We hadn't actually slept there since February! So as in February I was still making the squares that were the first part of the blanket, I hadn't been able to take even a part-finished blanket down to see that it would 'go' in the way I thought it would.

The main purpose of the stay was a sad one; my cousin's memorial service - she died in the spring, and the service was on what would have been her birthday. It was a beautiful day, and we'd met some other members of the family on Sunday afternoon in the park; beautiful weather then too.

The second lot of flowers of my annual subscription arrived yesterday - they were enough for 2 vases.

A Bit of Admin

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Not sure how necessary this is, but hoping it will help with other blogs.

What did you do in the Lockdown...?

...well in some respects, not a lot. I don't have an immaculately tidy house, a cleared loft, rows of homemade jams, jellies, etc. I haven't even made bread more than a couple of times! That was partly because I ran out of yeast, and partly because we found a baker that was delivering really good bread via our cheese man, who has also got together with a butcher, so we have been supplied with meat as well, when necessary, though our freezer was fairly full in March anyway. 

And I treated myself to a subscription of flowers every month for three months - from Bloom and Wild - this was the first month's selection - over a week after they were delivered, and still going strong, though by this time I'd had to get rid of a few. I have the second delivery now, but haven't taken a picture yet.

I do have a fairly well-weeded garden, but that's only because Mr Bufo went out for at least a few minutes every day, and dealt with anything obvious, as well as marching round to try and compensate for the fact that having the paper delivered means the daily walk to fetch it wasn't happening. And the strawberries have been magnificent!


But in January I started to follow a 'Crochet-Along' some of the early parts of which I showed in the April blog. And in early July, I finished it! Some of it was hard going - I thought I was never coming to the end of the 36 squares that were part 1; but then there were lots of triangles - not all the same, admittedly, but about 180 by the end, and finally 9 octagons. We were able to join up some of the triangles into larger shapes along the way, and then the squares were added to the octagons, together with 'wedges' made of three triangles each, so there were nine large roundels that then fitted to the odd shapes we'd made earlier. And finally a border round the whole lot. So I haven't been entirely idle, either...


Returning to add photos of this month's flowers - 2 vases-worth

Spring confined

And so we enter a strange time of beautiful weather but unable to go anywhere. We are lucky to have a garden and local shops who will deliver, so although Mr Bufo is in his mid-80s, and I am just into my 70s, we have been able to stay fairly isolated, with a couple of ventures to the over 70s slots - which were more crowded than normal shopping times, so reluctant to do that again.










We both had terrible coughs last autumn and many of the symptoms described as the current virus, so are wondering if it has been around longer than was realised, and that is what we had. It was pretty nasty, and I hope we did have it, as we certainly don't want that again, or anything worse.




Our planned breaks and holidays are of course on hold at the moment, postponed until the situation resolves itself - in the case of our French barge holiday, until May of 2021. 



So we potter about the garden, and I am keeping up with the latest Crochet-Along. Have done 36 squares (not shown) and at the time of this photo, 80 triangles, here joined in 4 large and 8 small sections 









- but as you see from the photo to the right, another 36 triangles done there, and since then 20 more, so just 52 more before another joining session, and then 9 octagons. All in all 233 individual pieces, joined with crochet, and a border to go round the whole...the last part will be released in July - and I hope by then we will all be released too!