Weekending and Whirling

I am really struggling to put things into words today, such a huge momentus something and the words just won't come out right. I'm nervous and amazed and honoured and delighted and feel like I'm caught in a strong current I can't direct or fight. Surrendering my idea of control, is, well, scary. I have absolutely no say over whether or not this baby makes it. Right now, that feels OK, but still... scary.

Anyway, weekendness and family. :) Here is my Anniversary card from sweet Martin, and two very glittery cards from those funny lovely girls.


We were heading to my mum's Church, but found the congregation inexplicably not in their usual venue, so we headed for a walk in the woods instead.

Sunday Skywatch: cool deep blue and barely sheerly whispily vieled in clouds. The breeze was refreshing, but the ground dry and hard.

The little forest pools were drying right out and lots of tadpoles had died; Jenna spent a good while in the mud in her white party shoes, digging a channel to allow some of the puddles to join together and releasing the restless wriggling helpless trapped.


On the meadow, "FLOWLOWS!" :)

Such a lot else to say, but it's all going around and around, so I'll leave it at that for today. I am so blessed!

So, um, hi!

I had a fabulous Mother's day morning: Anniversary card from hubby, glitter everywhere courtesy of child-made cards. Daffodils. Chocolate pastries. Anniversary meal with friends. Anxious afternoon (friend in crisis), but y'know, that all turned out OK (phew).

But all slightly overshadowed in the end. By two little pink lines. :)

Some Weekending

On Friday afternoon, some guys from the Dad group had booked a free street pohotgraphy session with a local arts group. The Dads are determined to keep going as long as they can without the funding/staff. Anyhow, the photography session was great fun. You can see some of the project here.



Jenna took some shots with my camera too. :)


She has an amazing perspective. :) I'd love to be able to get her her own camera.

Oh Pixie Morgan, how she loved to take pictures of the flowers. Many many pictures of the flowers.

Rowan hassling the poor pigeons again! This one was smart enough to foil her attempts to give it a cuddle...

And today has been one of those lovely home days, calm and quiet, nothing much special but very special to me in its own way. Here we are at a nearby park. :)



The tadpoles hatched, yay! The pond was seething with them.

My dad dropped off a new sofa for us too, and, well, it doesn't feel right yet. It smells funny, and isn't as conveniently shaped for piling things up along the back as the old one. But oh well, all things have their season and the old one was definitely on the way out!

The toy corner is slightly slimmed down - I rather enjoyed giving everything a good sort out yesterday - though I am still tolerating some horrible little plastic "fashion dolls" that were a prize at a party last week! Two have already been disposed of after an unfortunate decapitation by Rowan. I'm not encouraging her, honest.

Tomorrow is probably going to be a bit crazy busy. Church with my mum (for Mother's Day) then a birthday party (for one of Jenna's friends) and hopefully some time just as a family (because it's our Anniversary - seven years). :) At least we get an extra day - Martin is at home on Monday too!

Wild Garlic

So, Martin's day off yesterday was lovely. Bless him, he spent a couple of hours (while I was still in bed!) sorting laundry and cleaning the kitchen AND bathroom, so I woke up to a shockingly clean tidy house. :)

We went to the final goodbye event for the Dad's Group, victim of the cuts *sigh*, and oh it was really... wierd... and horrible. The staff were all obviously hurting, and spent a lot of time off in small huddles discussing what on earth they were going to do now. More than half have lost their jobs (they are support workers for special needs as well as running gentle parenting classes and were all working with the DAD project and some other stuff we've been involved with on and off). The mood was sombre and angry. The children didn't seem to notice thankfully.

Then we took a walk. :) Often my favourite parts of the week, our adventures all together...




Thursday Spring Skywatch. BLUE!





Lots and lots of wild garlic! Yay! (Shh, don't tell the National Trust whose property we quietly pulled this from - after all, it was EVERYWHERE!)

So our tea last night was a delicious wild garlic soup. And today we have wild garlic pesto! Yummy yummy yummy. I love free food. :)

Daffodils

...and sunshine. A quick walk to town earlier in the week - to throw grain at the ducks and visit the wholefoods shop for dried mango, a jar of olives, some local windmill-ground flour, and various other little weekday treats.

Morgan barely visible, watching the world go by in her own special way. *heart* This quirky girl, there is something about the way she sees things that just knocks my world a little bit off kilter.

The smallest one giggled infectiously at a dog chasing its tail. I can't get enough of her laughter. It makes me giddy.

These three are a whole lot of sunshine. Bar, of course, the huge massive meltdowns yesterday, but let's gloss over all that with the pictures of bright yellow flowers and smiling happy children, shall we? Today, well today is going to be just fine. :) Particularly since Martin has a day off. ;)

Wednesday WIP (and a book, too)

Still working on that simple vest from my last lot of hand-dyes! Ohh it's coming along nicely, but it's slower going than my usual choice of chunky projects lol.

And the book underneath is Sark's Succulent Wild Woman. Picking it up again for a smile, some encouragement, and something I don't have to concentrate on! Distractions abound...

Speaking of distractions, look at these!


And yeah so I sneaked in a picture of Morgan being her pixie self, who could blame me though? :)

Joining in with Ginny's Yarn Along again. :)

Paint me a Rainbow

It's early starts for me recently: Rowan is sleeping slighly longer nights but is perky and chatty before 5am. So, before 8am we were breakfasted and dressed, the breakfast pots washed, the kitchen cleaned, and this is what was on my stove...

Here I am in the garden at silly o'clock hanging out skeins of newly washed hand-dyed yarn... Yup, red hair again. :)

And this is the evidence of a) how early it was and b) how cold it was!

Playing shop occupied all three girls for a while, especially making price labels for everything. Leanne, look! Christmas presents! Thankyou so much. :)



The sun showed up for us eventually, smiling down on my washing line hung with slate blue, earthy brown, rosey blush, jade green, rich rust, and many shades besides. Dye days are made for sunny days, when everything dries so co-operatively in the open air and my kitchen doesn't drip with sheepy smells!

Someone was pretty determined to come "help"...


Here's Jenna's Koolaid tunic. I know, it doesn't look much like a tunic yet, but there ya go. The children were meant to be enthralled by how the yarn sucked up the colour and left a clear dye-bath. They couldn't have cared less, in fact, but they did like poking the bowls with spoons a bit.

Ah well, the results are cute and I can't wait to start making the dress she requested! It will be fabulousness. :)

I'm personally of the opinion that it's impossible to have too many rainbows, though. :)