Monthly Archives: April 2010

…and BREATHE…

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…

And the winner is…

…a scary thing to do fairly, but I think got it right with a numbered list,

  1. Anne@andamento
  2.  Geraldine
  3. Magic Cochin
  4. Thomas
  5. Jen
  6. Aimee
  7. Greedy Nan
  8. Gina
  9. Toffee
  10. Elizabeth Burton
  11. Jacqueline
  12. Hilary
  13. Rachel Fenton
  14. Jane
  15. Eva SB
  16. Vanessa
  17. Jenni
  18. Kate

and the use of a random number generator.

And it’s Elizabeth Burton!  Congratulations, Elizabeth, once I have contact details the little bird will be winging it’s way to you as soon as possible.

The next event coming up will be my 100th post so if you were disapointed this time I will be giving away another Planet Penny creation to mark that milestone as well, and if you REALLY can’t wait that long I can link you to a gorgeous giveaway at Silver Pebble.  I’ve got my eye on it, so I don’t know really why I’m lengthening the odds this way…

Emma made a special necklace for my daughter’s birthday which was beautiful.  No photo alas, but if you visit Emma you will see all the lovely things she makes.

Happy Easter…

Have you eaten enough chocolate yet?  I must admit to not having many family Easter traditions in place here on Planet Penny because as a one parent family when the children were small, they would have Christmas with me and Easter with their other family and an Easter egg Hunt for one is a little boring (and also very fattening!)   But this Easter just happened to coincide with my daughter’s birthday so an excuse for chocolate and champagne!

A request was made  for a very special chocolate cake, as seen on the cover of this month’s Sainsbury’s magazine.

Much agonising from me as I have rather lost my cake baking confidence.  Cake and I cannot safely exist in the same space, one of us has to go, and it’s always the cake.  I’m afraid all the pep talking from my Weight Watchers guru has not brain washed me into portion control and point counting in these circumstances so I find it easier to confine my baking to those occasions when I have several mouths to feed.

It involves a lot of chocolate and cream and eggs and sugar and melting and cooling and more chocolate (and scraping and licking) oh! and raspberries – now they’re  healthy…and in the end there was this…

…which I think worked rather well and was transformed with candles into this…

…and was voted the best chocolate cake ever. 

Higgins had an Easter present too, all the way from Korea and very beautifully packed.

Inside was this…

He wasn’t very grateful.

And went to bed to get over it. He was eventually persuaded to get out of bed when he realised he didn’t have to actually have to go out for a walk  in it…

And even tried a few super hero stunts…

But when Henry the cat (who refused to be Robin) gave him a smack for looking silly he gave up and went back to bed…

It’s a hard life having to be cute all the time…

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