Ahhhhhhhh.........

Well the Easter Hols are over and everyone has, somewhat reluctantly, gone back to school and work. If the intended purpose of school holidays is to have a restful time then we've failed. All 3 girls looked pretty worn out this morning, but I was thinking that may be a benefit. Tired children can just sit quietly and soak up the information can't they? Going back to school should give them a bit of a rest!!

Of course, going back to school marks the beginning of the last term. The summer term is for doing as much learning outside as possible, sports day (urrgh) and planning the summer entertainments. I'm on the school PTA so I will be gunning for a Sponsored Walk this year.

So far we're booked in for the Larmer Tree Festival Fun For Kids . I'm doing a Wonders of Wool workshop and can't wait. Lots of prep work though which I will probably typically leave to the last minute. Come and say Hi if you're going.

Other items on the agenda is my alternative route to Recession Busting. Instead of following the advice to shop our way out of recession (borrring) I shall be Knitting, Growing and Baking my way out who needs money anyway :-) .

I've found it almost impossible to be grumpy when on the allotment. I shall also be pumping a bit of time and energy into getting a plot going at our local school. To do something similar check out Landshare and RHS - Campaign for School Gardening - Home . Of course when I say 'pumping time and energy into' what I mean is nag/encourage/bribe the Man of the House to go up to school and help me make a plot!

And in the oven today is bread and a Lemon Drizzle cake.

After much pondering and computor gazing I found this pattern

Hey Teach cardigan - Summer 2008 - Knitty , so I've started knitting it (see left & right) and I'm imagining its going to be my protective garment, my suit of armour! Its going to be my Magic Teacher Top!

Now the weather is typically gorgeous so I really must be outside. I can feel a dyeing session coming on (that's wool people, please don't be alarmed) , which I might attempt outside on a fire and there's Art Therapy at the end of the week (almost forgotten about that didn't you! yes!) so there should be some interesting pictures soon.

Thanks for droping by.

Ta Ta x

And our winner was.........

Yes the sun was out and that can only mean one thing..............diggin'.

Here's a pic of our freshly dug earth ready for a few rows of potatoes. The allotment is one of those things that I nearly always think "Do I Have To?" (in a slightly whiney voice I learnt from the children!), but actually when I get there its quite nice. Its a lovely spot with beautiful views ( and I was bribed with an ice-cream!)

On our humble little plot we also have some garlic, and some nice purple sprouting which I picked for our dinner.

On the creative front I did start on the Chocolate Raspberry wool as I decided that with kids around for the weekend there really was no point doing any housework.

I started this on Saturday on the Kitchen table, unfortunately the fluff I'm using is incredibly fine so everything we've eaten since has had a fine layer of silk or bamboo!!

This is about half of it carded. I couldn't wait any longer and spun a bit of it to see what it was like and it is beautifully soft. The bamboo is really lovely stuff. I'll definately be buying more of that in the future.

So now I really must get on. The sun is shining and I need to get the washing out.

Cheerio x

n.b This is a lot easier and quicker with no children around!