Adding some colour

Since we moved into this house just over a year ago, I have disliked the little flower bed around the tree outside our front window. The white stones you can see in the photo below were a thick layer around the tree, until I got stuck in yesterday and pulled out the heather that was there and lifted most of the stones. This morning, having decided it was time to do something with the flowerbed, I went out to the garden centre with Mum and Dad. I bought another roll of edging (seen in the photo above) to replace the section that had broken/rotted away. I also bought some pansies and violas. Lovely splashes of colour!! I couldn't wait to get started.

Dad came round after lunch and did the hard work for me (thank you Dad!). He put in the new edging and then I could add a couple of bags of compost.

We stamped it down and in the photo above Dad was leveling off the compost before we set about placing the plants around the base of the tree until we were happy with the positions.

This is what it looks like now. I'm so looking foward to seeing these grow and having a lovely splash of colour outside our window.

So much nicer than white stones! I'm happy!!

xx

Comparison

Over the weekend my brother in law, Simon, sent us photos of their Spring weather in Chicago. He tells us they'd had temps of around 16 degrees C the day before and then woke up to this the next morning!

So, we decided to let him see what our weather was like this weekend ;P

There are often times when I wish we could live nearer to them in Chicago - this weekend wasn't one of those times :) We love you all lots but you can keep that sort of weather, I'll keep the UK Spring sunshine!

xx

Wickendens on a Saturday

Like the title says, today is Saturday. Every Saturday we have this little tradition where we go to Wickenden's, our local sweet shop, and buy sweets for everyone to have that night. We probably started this a couple of years ago but it's become more traditional since Emily has been old enough to know what day it is and what it means :) These photos weren't all taken today but I've been wanting to post them because we think our little sweet shop is the best!

The outside of the shopDad standing next to the front display window. All those little jars hold different sweets.

And when you go inside there are shelves full of bigger jars with all the different sweets. You decide which ones you want and how much you want. My favourites at the moment are the mini jelly babies (I think they're made by Haribo). Claire bought me a little jar full of them for Mother's Day as part of my present. Needless to say, the little jar was empty by today so I bought more to fill it up again. And a close up of all my jelly babies (below)

When Emily comes with me, Geoff Wickenden (the proprietor) waits for her to do her mental arithmatic and add up everything that we're buying and give him the total. I'm pleased to say she always seems to be right! ;D There has been talk of the shop closing when Geoff decides to retire and that would be a very sad day indeed. We're hoping that won't be for a very long time.

After our wonderful weather last week, this week has been very disappointing. Today we seem to have nearly all seasons in one day. Above is a little hail stone on our garden table from this afternoon. There were more hail stones but they didn't lie for long, hence the photo of the lone one!

Taken at the same time however, is this photo of our wall flowers coming into bloom. I still find it reassuring to see signs of spring and the weather forecasters are predicting better weather again next week. I hope they're right!

Only one more week until Emily goes on holiday for Easter. I'm hoping we might get a chance to do a few day trips (now that I have SatNav for my car) and that the weather will be kind to us then also.

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

xx

It's Friday

I am so glad it's Friday, it's felt like a long week and I'm ready for it to be over! The shopping in Tunbridge Wells went well and I got the Bobbi Brown eyeshadow I needed. Claire also ended up buying some BB makeup and mum used her gift voucher from Iain on some BB eyeshadow as well. We wandered around the shops (with Claire having to stop at Jane Norman twice ;o) ) and had a lovely lunch at The Nutmeg Tree. It always gets so busy at lunch time and the last couple of times we've been we've not been able to get in because there have been queues waiting outside. On Wednesday we went just before mid day and were able to get a table. After lunch we popped into Marks and Spencers and picked up some of their breaded chicken for dinner (yum!)

On Wednesday afternoon it poured and I was looking out the window when I saw this rainbow. I grabbed my camera and managed to get a few shots before it disappeared.

If you look in the top right corner you can actually see there was another rainbow above it though the second one wasn't as clear. Another shot where you can see the second rainbow a bit clearer.

Yesterday was my morning for meeting up with friends for coffee at Caffe Nero. We meet once a fortnight and tend to spend the whole morning catching up and chatting. Always a fun morning and yesterday was no exception.

Last night Jon and I went to Sackville for Emily's parents evening. We saw most of her teachers and they all think she is lovely and her work is outstanding. I love parents evening like that, you leave feeling really good! Well done Emily and keep up the good work! We love you loads!

This morning I popped down to Sainsbury's to do Mike's shopping for him. They are still trying to get his medication dose sorted out and his leg is still sore so I offered to get his shopping. He is back at the Doctor's this morning because he's also had a pain under his armpit since yesterday and had thought it was from the way he was lying but it was still sore today and they suggested he go in again.

I am now going to do what ironing I have to do so that I can relax this afternoon. Looking forward to a peaceful weekend.

xx