I feel as if I’ve been holding my breath for months, waiting for this moment.  Waiting to open the doors and windows, to let in the sun and fresh air, to wander in and out without a coat…and here we are at last.  I don’t want a ‘barbecue summer’, well, not one that will barbecue me, but pleasant warmth, sunshine and light, and just enough rain for the garden (only falling at night please, if we’re having a fantasy lets get it right). 

  I’m scuttling about a bit at the moment. A little bit of gardening, a little bit of sorting fabrics and yarns, some sewing, some knitting, symptoms of a butterfly brain.  So excuse me if this post is a bit like that, I’ll settle down soon.

Firstly, the garden. You’ll excuse me if I don’t take you round the vegetable patch just yet.  It needs a little more  attention before I show it to visitors.  Too many old bean canes and dead flowerpots.  I do have lovely raised beds which I talked about in this post, and I have extravagantly enlisted the help of a gardening guru to make it look good enough for a photo shoot.

The wild plum is just bursting into bloom and  I love the ‘spottiness’ of the buds just before they open.  We started on the last of the wild plum jam on Sunday on warm scones.

In a couple of days it will just  be a froth of blossom.

The forsythia is doing it’s thing, quite a bit later this year.  Every summer I look at this unprepossessing nondescript shrub filling up the border and nearly give it it’s marching orders, and every spring I  forgive it.

There are assorted daffodils…

…and other, less assertive, little lovelies hiding their light under the bushes…

Meanwhile, back in the studio, there is a very different tree…

The little red bird is feeling a trifle lonely now that his pink friend has flown off to live with Elizabeth, I must get felting again.

…and then there is the knitting…

Quite big knitting as Higgins will demonstrate…

The ball has a history – which I’ll tell you about another time – but it’s just had a colour revamp before going off to our local Farmers Market tomorrow where the Knit and Stitch group are hoping to spread the knitting bug, (whilst spoiling ourselves with coffee and and the delicious, and very naughty, bacon rolls.

So, before that happens I must don my wellies and gardening gloves and head back out to the vegetable garden and absorb a little sunshine…