I wish I could share this beautiful tree in a shaft of sunlight with a blue sky background, but alas the gloom of the last few days makes me worry if I wait for the sun to come out, all the blossom will have faded and died.  It tends to run in a two year cycle, last year there were about three flowers, this years it’s really going to town!

I seem to have spent so much time over the past week with my head down, working, that things are popping out in the garden and I’m missing them.  I’m hopelessly behind with the Garden Diaries, I was full of good intentions but there is only one of me, and it’s a bit of a struggle to not only do it all, but write about it too!

We’re really in the run up to the Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios now, doors open next Saturday for three weekends, which is both scary and exciting.  We’re not novices this year though, we had a really positive experience last year, so we’re looking forward to it.

In between winding many, many little balls of cotton over the last week for the Rainbow Mouse Kits I’ve been working on a new pattern and I’ve just finished making the prototype in time to show it to my Handmade Monday chums…  I seem to be in the grip of a mouse obsession at the moment, both crochet and needlefelt and I can’t quite move on from it yet.     I wanted to devise something small, to use up those little oddments of yarn which might otherwise be wasted, so I’ve now got a teeny, tiny mini mouse!

I couldn’t let him be lonely…

…and in the end of course, there had to be one of each colour… and then I thought… MAGNETS!

I’ve had quite a lot of fun playing with them….!

I hope to write the pattern before too long and I’ll put it on the Etsy shop, although if you’ve bought a Planet Penny Yarn pack I will send you the pattern on request.  I’m thinking about a kit too, but does anyone know whether sending magnets through the mail, especially overseas, is a potential problem?  I hate to think of one of my ‘pink parcels’ being detonated in a car park somewhere!

If you are a Handmade Monday regular and wondering about the rest of the wedding bits and pieces, I wrote about it in my last post which you will find here.  It’s worth a visit just to see the amazing wedding cake made entirely from….well I won’t spoil it, go and take a peek!

Next week, hopefully on Thursday, I will publish my first ever Guest Post.  If you have children, or grandchildren aged 10+ or are an avid reader yourself come back to meet the author Thomas Taylor, talking about his novel, ‘Haunters’, which is published next week.  (It’s dedicated to me and Tim, it’s amazing what people will do to be allowed on Planet Penny!!!)

I’ll leave you with a link to Wendy’s Handmade Harbour so you can visit all the other Handmade Monday blogs, and yet more mice…

See you soon….squeak! x