Past the Equinox

I suppose the days are getting warmer as well as longer, though I'm still wearing jumpers! I've been busy testing a new blanket, which has now gone to its recipient as an 'Easter Egg', so I can show it to you. I couldn't show anyone until the pattern was released - it's Skydance by CatsWhiskers Crochet and available on Ravelry if you follow the link.

I've also begun some socks for Mr Bufo, and am finishing a cardigan for him, so I'll show those in my next post - whenever that is!

Roll on summer!   

A New Year begins

 

Universe in Bloom  designed by Dedri Uys

So we are halfway through January and I can now show you the blanket I finished in time to hand over as a Christmas present, plus one of the two almost identical that I made earlier in the year. The centres of both were the same, but they had different borders, and a flowered cardigan made for a friend. 

Festival of Lights, designed by Jessica Wifall

Granny Meets Hippie (lengthened)
designed by Reimy Johanna

Candlemas (2 Feb), and longer days, will be with us soon, and meanwhile I'm testing yet another blanket - so no pics of that allowed publicly yet, though of course I'm recording progress, and can perhaps show you in the spring.

Heatwaves and holes in the ground

 

It's been too hot and sticky to think, let alone do any work, or very much crochet! Thankfully it has rained today, which makes it a little cooler, though I gather it has been torrential further east.

Not long ago, a hole appeared in the pavement outside our front wall. We knew our drainpipe to the main sewer was right underneath it, and there have been a few occasions when the drain has backed up, but that had been OK for a couple of months - and then suddenly the sinkhole.  

We didn't do anything immediately because of several recent blips with Mr Bufo's health, but on a recent Tuesday I spent what seemed like forever on a 'webchat' to Southern Water, including needing to send them a photo of the hole, which at least meant they gave us a 'job number' and said they would send someone within 72 hours. By 3pm that afternoon, someone had actually arrived, and did a bit of investigation down our manhole in the front garden. He put in a report and said someone would come the next day. 

So on Wednesday morning someone came and spent a while digging and not seeing anything, so he said someone would come with a camera the next day, as he couldn't see much wrong, and left a hole which he put barriers round. 

So on Thursday 2 blokes turned up and did a bit more digging. They eventually found the problem just under the front wall, where their pipe had slipped below our outlet - so our front garden had been getting a lot of extra fertilisation - but thankfully they 'owned' it rather than saying it was our problem, and replaced the faulty pipe, then someone came and started filling it all up, so the barriered area was smaller, and finally on the Friday another gang came along and tarmac-ed over the top. 

All very Flanders and Swann. 

I have nearly finished the second of two blankets for the granddaughters. This is the first, but the second has a slightly different arrangement of motifs, and a completely different border. If it cools off a bit I will get the second one finished soon, and you might even get a new post to celebrate the fact!

New Year, New Post

- If only to get the 'Blogs I follow' list up the page a bit by hiding all of last year's posts!

Cold and sunshine today, so after half an hour trying to cut things back in the garden, about to sit with my crochet (see pic for current project) and watch the snooker final. Just a few more rows of the border to do, but waiting for another ball of one colour I have just run out of to be able to finish completely.

And Now we're past the Equinox

Autumn is upon us, and although I haven't done much blogging, I have been fairly busy. The 'Heirloom' blanket is finished, and another is being worked out.

Two more reprinted EJO books have been prepared for publication - one is already out and one currently at the printers, with more to do for next year, so no let-up on that front.

One of the summer highlights was a rail trip to Dartmouth. We joined the train at Romsey early one Saturday morning, and were diesel hauled to Taunton. Then 'Sir Nigel Gresley' took us to Kingswear via Exeter and Paignton, and our tickets included the ferry crossing to Dartmouth. We took a picnic lunch and were served fizz, unlimited coffees or teas, and a 'snack box' each both morning and afternoon. 

That was so generous that we almost could have managed without taking anything of our own, but Mr Bufo's quiches are well worth the carrying. We managed to park at Romsey station all day for just over £2, so when we were finally dropped off again at about 9.30 in the evening, it was just a quick drive home - and a lovely day!

We'll be doing our usual end of season trip to Cleeve Abbey soon, and the year will be over before we know it!

On the way to Summer

Part of the 'Making Mischief' folk costume exhibition

We have just returned from our first real expedition of the year. An attempt at a weekend away in April was marred as we arrived by Mr Bufo having as spectacular a fall as I had suffered in February, including an evening in A&E - this time in Taunton! 

So it was several weeks before we felt confident enough to attempt another foray. But the Folk costume exhibition we had wanted to see since it opened in February would be finishing on 11 June, so we had to do something about it. We had been to Compton Verney before, nearly 10 years ago, so knew it was worth a visit for its own sake, and found a nearby Mercure Hotel, Walton Hall, so that we could take a fairly gentle drive up on Wednesday afternoon, see the exhibition on Thursday morning, and come home that afternoon. All of which worked as planned, we also managed to see a friend who lives nearby for dinner at the hotel on the Wednesday evening, and although tired afterwards, we felt we'd had a good time. The exhibition was well worth the trip, but the restoration of the Georgian chapel, and the rehang of the permanent folk collections were also good to see.

Motif 3 (of 6 designs)

More crochet has been accomplished on the Heirloom blanket, but plenty more to do. I'm currently nearly finished all 8 of Motif 4, have done 8 Motif 1; 9 Motif 2; & 8 Motif 3 (shown here)

The latest flower delivery was peonies, which don't last long, but are lovely while they do.

And once again we have a good crop of strawberries; this was the first picking - about a week later than last year's.

We'll soon be off Somerset again for the last ever Cleeve weekend.

First Day of Spring?

Not a great deal to say - recovering from a rather spectacular fall on my face, which thankfully managed not to break my nose, or a tooth, or a wrist! but made a mess of my face for a while, though it has healed well. 

Was attracted to a new blanket, in hexagons, and have made a good start as can be seen above. There will be 8 of this design, and 8 or 9 each of several others, but so far I've nearly finished all of this type.

Trying to arrange the usual seasonal visits to Somerset and Sussex, but neither of us have been well enough for long enough to be confident about actually booking anything yet. The weather hasn't been great either, despite 'them' telling is it was the driest February in a long time. By contrast March has been quite wet.

Winter Draw(er)s On

 ...yes, I know that's an old chestnut but it still raises a smile. 

As often seems to be the case, it has been some months since the last post, and we've begun to get out a bit more; we've both had our 3rd 'booster' dose of Pfizer. We've been to the flat a couple of times, and we went to The Castleman again for Mr Bufo's birthday. 

This was the breakfast table 

And this was the lounge the night before.

We've also been to Eastbourne - hence the sunrise in the top picture. 

Now we're making plans for Christmas and the year will soon be over - we already have some appointments in on the new calendar for next year!

Still knitting and crocheting, too - a blanket (this is the centre section, there is more to come)...

...socks...

...and I've made a Christmas cake, which has now had 3 (of the 6) weekly feeds of brandy!

   

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.

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!

So time moves on ...

...and the shawl is finished, and has been blocked since this photo, but I haven't got a picture of it in the latest state yet;

and another one - of a different nature - started. This will be more of a wide lace scarf.









We have rearranged the spare room anent visitors, and had another week in a different part of France! - though the hotel we went to is also part of the Autograph group.

Easter Greetings

...and good news!
At last we have grant of probate, and hope to complete on Mum's bungalow on Wednesday ... 

We spent a few days at our favourite hotel in Lille, where I was able to get on with more of the 'lanterns' for my shawl

I have completed 54 of the 66 lanterns now - shown here in a plastic bag next to the Christmas Present I received  from eldest granddaughter ... who has just got engaged!

And now it's Easter - where did that time go?

Marching on ...

Just a quick update - still no probate but signs that it won't be much longer; hoping buyers are happy to wait another couple of weeks. 

In the meantime, I haven't touched the yarn I showed in the February post, because I've been seduced by Mystical Lanterns and show some of my motifs below: 

These were the first three and so each of the twelve colours has been used once. Then all the balls go back into a bag and get picked 'blind' to give a different selection for the next three 'lanterns'













And here are all twelve colours, plus the thirteenth, joining colour - the pale peachy one at top right

Also finished a pair of socks (as always, 2-at-a-time and toe-up) from this pattern - sock yarn bought in Lille last summer.

February falals

So as 2016 has well and truly begun, the 'Christmas card' post needs replacing...

Mum's bungalow is finally cleared, and we hope will soon be sold. The work on reprints continues, and so does the knitting and crochet - a recent trip to meet friends in Salisbury yielded a rather good value pack of different colours of yarn, so another blanket is in the offing:

Have done a test square - though not yet sure of the exact pattern I'll use - with some stash yarn...