Powis Castle

Today Mum and I indulged in one of her great passions. Mum loves plants and loves to garden. First stop was a garden centre where we might have bought a few plants to transform the wilderness in to a garden.



After that we went for some inspiration at Powis castle, beautiful gardens filled with plants, and the most wonderful yew hedges.





I'd love to see them being cut, definitely not a simple job, they had a photo of it being done during the Victorian era, end it looked tricky then even without modern regulations and another century of growth.

Woolfest

It's that time of year again, the end of June which means Woolfest (and my birthday!)
Woolfest is the largest UK fibre festival and is held up in The Lake District in Cockermouth. This was the area which was hit by devastating floods last November and the area is just being re-built.
Mum and I always go together as my birthday treat and stay in the camper van overnight. On Friday night after a long day walking round spending our money we pulled up on a common round the back of Skiddaw. There were wild ponies grazing which of course made me cooo, and then they came up to say hello. Combined with a beautiful moonrise it really was the perfect end to a fantastic day!

Hands

Natalie at the Yarn Yard first did this idea when we went to York back in January. I finally had chance to do the same for some of the ladies in my knitting group when we were knitting in public on Sunday. (World Wide Knit in Public Day is held to raise the profile of knitting as a hobby, and to try and beat the stereotype that we're not all old ladies!)
Rather than plaster people's faces over the internet here are some photos of their all important hands, every time I see any of these hand close ups I find it amazing how differently we all do the same thing, to make the same finished project.

Celebration

Over the past 12 months we've been celebrating the start of Guiding. We've had lots of events over the year for girls, but today was chance to say thank you to the adults who run all the units. I've just got back from a garden party where it was most strange to see all these ladies who normally you only ever see in uniform dressed in their best. The weather was little chilly so I was very glad to be able to wear my Aeolian shawl (for only the second time!) for some much needed warmth.
I showed you the finished photos last year but I don't think I ever showed you me wearing it, and it's very nearly guiding blue!


Happy birthday Girlguiding, here's to another 100 years!

Mary, Mary how does your garden grow?

Well not quite with silver bells and cockle shells but certainly it's growing at a great rate of knots.
While I was away riding the weather was sunny and warm and this last week it's rained a bit and the plants have gone crazy! Some of them a bit too crazy as some of the salad leaves have started flowering!

My tomatoes are flowering like crazy, and even the pepper which has clung to life for the last month has put on an inch. The courgettes are starting to show signs of flowering and I had my first mange tout for lunch on Friday. To think, this time last year I hadn't even moved in yet so nothing was growing!

Up hills and down dales

We went for a walk with boyfriends parents yesterday in the Derbyshire Dales, it was one of those damp misty days, that eventually turned to rain.

Very sensibly the cows were lying down.



It's stil raining today so I've been busy catching up on my knitting!

Success

Finally a joyous post. I have a job for next year. It's at one of my old placement schools, and I couldn't be happier! It won't be without it's challenges, but it will be somewhere I an be me, and not feel guilty about it!

I think the cows would approve!