I had been doing well

I had been managing to post more regularly but I'm afraid you're going to have to realise that when the sun comes out I go outside more and spend less time on my laptop :) This is what's making me happy at the moment:

Getting the towels washed and being able to dry them outside on the line - which results in ...a big basket of clean towels ready to go back in the airing cupboard. The dogs enjoying lying on the top step in the sunshine or, in Cloud's case, getting to sit in the sun on the grass!

Seeing the flowers start to bloom

Charlie soaking up the heat from the wall while lying in the shade (in the flower bed)

Blue skies

Being able to sit outside and have lunch or a cup of tea

More wallflowers opening up and

tulips making an appearance.

All things that take me away from blogging - but I'm sure you understand ;P

Today we invited Mum and Dad for a braai/bbq and hoped that the weather would hold. We had sunshine and it was very pleasant - though when it clouded over it was cooler!

Jon had just taken a bite when I snapped this one.

Mum and Dad getting some food.

Emily is now on holiday for two weeks and we're looking forward to getting a chance to relax and, hopefully, not rush around so much. Still hoping to do a few days out but already things are being added to the calendar!

Hope you've had a good weekend and here's to some more lovely weather next week (I can always hope!)

xx

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