Photo Finish

OK, so here's the deal. I have a lifetime of old photos, actually four lifetimes of old photos seeing as we have four kids, so on the last day of every month I'll stick one of my favourites up here and anyone bored enough to be reading this blog can have a moment of thinking 'ahhhh, how sweet they were' :)

Taken on August 14th 2005 - Emily's 6th birthday
in the Japanese garden at Cliveden House

Where have all the conkers gone?

The leaves on the horse chestnut trees are already turning brown - they look very strange against the green of the other trees. There are a few conkers on the ground and a few still on the trees, looking like lime green alien growths amongst the brown leaves, but nothing compared to the amount that here ususally is in September. OK, so it's still a little early for conkers, but its way too early for all the brown leaves too. They should be yellowing a little, not the horrible brown dried up things that we have at the moment. Is it the sudden lack of rain we've had over the last two weeks? Seems unlikely considering the massive amount of rain we've had over the rest of the summer.

What a beautiful day!

Dropped the kids off for their first day back at school today and went for a coffee in my favourite coffee shop - raspberry and white chocolate muffins worth exercising for - and started the rib for my second ever pair of hand-knitted socks. As i was sitting there in the glorious sunshine I realised how incredibly happy i was to be at a whold new beginning. The new school year, the new socks and, more importantly, the new start I made with my promise to myself to Get Things Done!

Yeah, I know, I've made the same promise before but this time I've actually stuck to it so far AND enjoyed the amazing sense of achievement (even from the little differences so far). OK - so I'm not always getting the days list of jobs done, but it's been because I'm doing other stuff instead. Real stuff that needs doing not just the wasting time and procrastinating stuff that I usually manage to do when I'm avoiding life.

Ooo - forget to tell you all - I finished my first ever pair of hand-knitted socks at the weekend. They have been finished all but the grafting on the second sock for about 6 months until now. They were knitted from the Snowflake Lace Sock pattern on the MagKnits website and knitted up in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock "Bittersweet".



They were probably a bit complicated for a first pair of socks, but I'd much rather make something that takes a bit of brain power than something that makes me bored. There's a few mistakes in them but I can't find them now they're finished so I don't think anyone is going to point them out when i wear my gorgeous new socks :)

Let there be light...

Today I finally got the first two of my roof hatches in! It's only taken about five years, mostly because it took us forever to find someone that would actually make the frames for us. My woodwork is so not up to anything that complicated - especially seeing as I really didn't want them to leak every time it rained. Then I had to strip down our poor old rusty roof and paint it. I wish I could say I'd done the whole roof but with the weather we've had this summer there just hasn't been time. As it is it's taken a solid week, £60 of primer and £45 of topcoat to do just over a third of the roof, but it does look good now.

Even better - we finally have lots of light inside the boat. We can look up and see the sky, or the stars (or the cat looking down at us)

And only a few kitty paw prints in the fresh paint to annoy me.