This time of year

I love this time of year, the days are at their longest, the garden is starting to grow, and it's time for the Tour de France. Now I don't really do physical exertion of the kid that involves riding a bike, but I love watching other people push their bodies to extremes. I've managed to watch most of the coverage for the past couple of years, one year I managed to contract something that was suspected to be Swine Flu so was kept off work so I didn't contaminate the whole school, and last year I was off sick.
This year of course I can pick my own working hours, and I can definitely sit and drum card while following the early stages of the race. If we get some sprints like last year though all activity requiring concentration is definitely off the cards!

I also love this time of year as I can sign up for some different kinds of challenges, while the cyclists are travelling around France, I'll be trying to spin something for every day that they're riding. I want to see just how much of this Shetland fleece I can spin up. I've already washed it, but I'll be carding it as I go along, so I don't expect to get the whole thing done. Sounds like fun, the Tour de FleeceGroup is on Ravelry.



If you feel like really getting in to the spirit of Le Tour then maybe you might fancy the Tour de France jersey's in batt form. The winners of various competitions with in the race get to wear jersey's of various colours, Maillot Jaune for the race leader, Maillot Vert for the best sprinter, and Maillot a Pois Rouges for the best mountain climber. If you buy the Tour de France batt set from the Shop then you get free postage.

I'm also doing the Tour de France knitalong again. I started knitting a lovely blanket pattern back in February, but since then progress has stalled so I'm using this as incentive to try and finish it off. I've done 2 of the 7 panels, so again I might not finish it.

Nothing much

That about sums it up really, nothing much happening here.
I've finally finished marking GCSE exam papers, which wasn't a pleasant task, but paid well enough over the couple of weeks to mean I can survive with to other income for a while longer. It did however provide some comedy answers, my favourite one being "stem cells are omnipotent"
Meg our bouncy collie has been spayed. So much of the last few days has been spent trying to stop her haring round the house like usual. 24 hours after the operation she thought nothing was wrong with her, and is most upset that she's not getting any walks or her tennis ball thrown. To placate her Mum and I drove over to Llanidloes to see the Wool and Willow Festival, we also snuck in a cup of coffee. As an added bonus Meg thought she's been out somewhere, where as in reality all she did was walk 20 m down by the river to stretch her legs before we dove back home!

I'm now busy stoking the shop back up again, as it got rather empty while I was on a deadline exam marking, hopefully we'll get some better weather soon as well, it seems to have done nothing but rain recently.