And Breathe.....

Brrrr it has been really cold but beautiful here in Sussex, and despite hovering around freezing all day, it's been too dry to snow which I must confess to being rather relieved about. I walked Scruff this morning and saw a flock of lapwing in the field, and then the small herd of about 15 fallow deer sitting in the sun by the hedge in the next field. I know they are sufficiently common to be regarded as a pest, but there is something elegant and ethereal about deer, and in this little herd there is a pure white one who is rather stunning among its brown counterparts.

I cycled with the girls up to near the village hall yesterday afternoon to pick the last of the crab apples, and got many a strange look from the parents collecting their children from the local primary school. It wasn't a tremendous haul but we picked enough for a saucepanful and I now have another few jars of crabapple jelly. It also gave me a chance to try out my new bike basket that my parents got me for Christmas:

My lovely Scruff

Yesterday evening the children went to their father's for the night as they had a family event to go to today, so I had a much-needed break. The weekends that they spend with him have reduced down to 24 hours and I find I am just getting in to the swing of having some time and space when they come back, and bless them, they are understandably grouchy with all the changes and contrasts so rarely is it a particularly joyful reunion. So to have an extra bit of time is a real treat especially as Charles took the day off too.

We decided on a packed out program of a morning of doing nothing, then a pub lunch, followed by some more nothing. My nothing consisted of some crochet, sewing and giving extra food and bedding to the bunnies, guineas, ducks and chickens, and Charles' revolved around reading the paper and listening to the cricket on the radio, interspersed with the tastiest sausage and mash at the Three Cups. It has been bliss, even though I had to unravel my crochet 3 times and have come to the conclusion that my sewing machine definitely needs a service. The children are back tonight before going off to their dad's again tomorrow afternoon (the girls have Stagecoach in the morning) but I am hoping to retain some of my adult perspective and not get sucked in too much, with a view to seamlessly carrying on the weekend, and resting my poor addled and worrisome brain!

Bees, bikes and yarn

Amber has had a bad cold which has required lots of iPlayer and You Tube to get her through the worst of it and to save a row I let her have my laptop, but I have stolen it back for long enough to do a quick blog post. All my wool from Stash arrived yesterday:

I realised, being rather new to the whole yarn lark, that I had sort of slightly mis-ordered, which resulted in me being rather a sad bunny when I thought I might have to send it back. However, having spoken to Nicky we decided I could probably salvage the situation with a bit of creativity. I want to knit Tristan a woolly hat so having never tackled knitting with circular needles or Fairisle/stranded knitting and with 2 end-of-year exams looming, I thought there was no better time to start such a project. Tristan, of course, is overwhelmed with joy at the thought of one of his mother's hand-knitted creations for his birthday just as any 14 year old boy would be. At least that's why I presume he didn't really say anything when I measured his head.

Here it is thus far though:

I'm on row 4. Or was it 3...

My lupins seem to have burst back into life meaning they have been flowering pretty much non-stop since May:

And the bees are still working the Himalayan balsam by the river. It's tricky getting pictures but they are coming back to the hive with bright gold pollen which according to my chart (yes! really!) could be ivy or balsam so although it is a pernicious weed, it's very good for my girls getting ready for winter. They've kicked all the boys out now as they would use valuable resources and I'm hoping to have a look in the hives once more before the winter to check they've enough stores.

Rosie and I cycled to town today which was nice and surprisingly quick, although perhaps a library trip wasn't very wise as my basket was laden and I had omitted to remember that it's slightly uphill all the way back. Still, R enjoyed it and it was great to use my new bike; it ran really well and I hadn't realised how much I had missed not having one.

Sunshine after the rain

We had rather an upset yesterday as the children's bikes got stolen which flattened me completely but luckily my parents picked up the baton and by this afternoon, after a great deal of effort and prayer and general all-round good stuff, they had procured 3 new-to-them bikes for the children. The kids are really pleased and Dad brought round my bike too that they had got off Freecycle for me and spruced up. So, despite going into a bit of a decline last night, the day picked up immeasurably.

Mine and Tristan's bikes, with Rosie's
in the background

And Amber's bike is turquoise like her last one:

So many thanks to my parents for helping so much and to Stephen at Let's Bike in Eastbourne for bringing Rosie's bike over to us.

Luckily, the weather was cheerier today so a) I dried all the laundry that my non-joined-up brain had decided to put in the washing machine despite knowing the forecast and b) the chickles got a decent time out of the run. They are getting really grown up now:

And little Hazel is still looking pretty striking:

I still don't know if they're boys or girls!

Nicky popped over this evening for a CCG meeting despite feeling pretty rotten with a cold so I really appreciated her making the effort. We discussed winter projects and ended up on a yarn website which we shouldn't really be allowed to do without a responsible adult in attendance but it was most inspiring and we only really looked at the Discounted Yarns page, honest :-)