Happy Birthday Papa!

Today is the little gnome's birthday. Even though we are not there, we are all sending huge amounts of love.

Happy birthday, with extra love from May!

What I would really like today

Is a quiet day, a catch up


I have been chasing my tail, walking the dog, delivering training, stretching my mind, working, struggling too finish gifts in time for birthdays, entertaining children.

But today I would like a quiet day.

Re-edited at 8.44am after feeding the family, putting the laundry on, loading the dishwashing machine, hoovering, taking the children too school and walking the dog - things are yet to go to plan but I did find this from REforms blog

What I need:
More hours in the day
or days in the week.
More room to breath
or a cleaner.
More money in my pocket
or someone to sew up the holes.
More of an organised house
or somewhere safe to put my camera.
More chocolate
or a personal trainer.

More weekends away
or a really long sodding holiday.


mmmm, she is so right there!

A typical Bank Holiay?

It is the Easter break right now, well actually it is just an extended weekend as for the first time in my lifetime the schoool holiday is not at the same time as Easter so it is back to school tomorrow after a short break.













This long weekend included a flurry of snow, yes a real live flurry over a few days, nothing settling but it was mighty cold walking May along the river.



So today, Bank Holiday Monday we made our trip too Oxford. Louie had wanted to visit Lyra's Oxford again - last time he and I went to see Callum Innes at Modern Art oxford and he bought this book, so today was the designated day to set off on our Oxford journey.













It was very dark, rainy and cold but armed with a little map we wandered round colleges, bookshops and strange little pen shops, saw random reindeers in the window, walked in the footsteps of J.R.R Tolkein and C.S.Lewis and found the house of the artist William Turner.




































Now we are home, warming up, rainboots off and back to school tomorrow

A Good Friday

Today we did this


then this


and more of this


we almost avoided all the rain there was by fluke

ate cake at the wonderful Picnic


then watched a movie

came home and did the third dog walk of the day

A Good Friday

If you are not at knit night this is what you are missing

Birthday cakes for ella and emma, happy birthday! X

sent from knit night so hurry up and get here

Team Zissou

The newest team member, watching crufts 2008.

Blogged from my phone and haven't worked out how to turn the photo round yet....

a trip round the garden for the little gnome

The little gnome has been sending updates of the garden, an orange tree with juicy plump oranges, budding and growing plants, with more than an essence of sunshine on the back garden, so this post little gnome is for you.

May had to get in the shot too



clashy colours



a single tete a tete






the acer starting to bud



the clementine armandi ready to pop it's flowers



The little gnome's Camellia starting to flower

mothers and daughters

So we spent the weekend trying to finish things off. Whirly had a project for the new baby next door - a little hat on circular needles, I was trying to finish the edging rows of the present for my mum. This has to be done by Thursday to be posted to her for her birthday, a 16 row pattern x 70 times. I did not get much done yesterday, visited the mother in law for Mothering Sunday which involved us catering (that should read *me* as hubby did none), driving two hours each way but at least we walked May on the beach... well Louie and I did as bama has a break in her foot, hubby was tired and Mother in Law set of with us but then her feet hurt too so she was collected.

mothers and daughters, mother in laws, mothers in other countries

Happy Mothers Day Mae x x x

he is iant

This is iant, he lives here in the photo world and blogs here. He is the fairy dogfather, May loves him and so we made him this hat as he is a celebrity and you should be overt in your celebrity-ism

Thanks iant ; )

Today I am going too think about 10 British things that I like, not in any sense of anglophilism (can I have that anyway?) but just because I lately feel like I have been knitting up union jacks like there is no tomorrow ~ I would also like too point out that I am happy that it is relatively straightforward as, say the US flag may be might tricky or the German flag pretty straightforward so I guess the UJ is pretty middle of the road.

Talking of stars and stripes, I love this Wonder Woman jumper. What else would you ever need?

10 things I like that are definitely very British:

1. Cups of tea - why? how does that happen, is it a genetic thing

2. Marmite - ditto above, strange eh

3. The changing weather, always gives us something to talk about

4. That no-one really knows if they should say they are British, Uk or European - always in a quandry

5. That it is acceptable to be eccentric (probably includes not knowing what you are from statement above)

6. Fish and Chips (obviously without the fish for me please)

7. That a tea-cosy can double up as an acceptable woolly hat and no-one will question it

8. Tank tops form a basis of every day life and it is possible to get away with it

9. That a complete knowledge of Dr Who is acceptable

10. Eating of really good homemade cake...mmmm

May, one very loved dog

She has only been here a short time and has tried and tested us with different quirks such as running up the stairs but crying a she is too frightened too come down, having an odd nibble on visitors when she is frightened, crying at zebra crossings and generally taking the whole sofa too herself when we are at home.

But we are all working really hard too make her feel loved, wanted and special and there are changes already - she is a rescue dog who we did not know much about apart from that she was skinny, her muscles were wasted but she also wanted to be with us. She is part of us and life without her after only 5 months seems difficult too imagine. We love her, a very loved dog

plagarised from the cards

, originally uploaded by Cardinal Wolsey.

Here is something I made a little earlier, it is a gift for the lovely iant who is May's fairy dogfather...ahhh, bless Thank you Cardinal Wolsey for allowing me too steal from your pictures x x

a small (very small) addiction I have

It is yarn, not your run of the mill yarn, but strokeable yarn....mmmmm

'tis all my fault

So you would think I have enough to do with work, life, family, lovely dog, knitting, flickr'ing but I find myself Ravelry-ing. Looking at beautiful things, seeing what people have made, seeing other people's addictions. So I was stroking the Noro and maybe became so obsessed that I find myself with a Noro'd child, not the yarn type the sicky type : (

I may have said this before: Rain, rain and more rain

I think there is a theme here, I don't think it has actually stopped raining enough yet to dry the roads since I arrived back 48 hours ago - I am sure it must have at some point but the river is flowing high and every time I walk outside the rain is tipping down.

I'd forgotten how much it rains and have been going out dressed as some strange dog walker to try and keep dry but no matter how many layers you have on it gets to your skin - that might be where the rain trickles in over my boots, or swings under the hood of my raincoat or drips of my raincoat direct onto my knees.

It did stop may jumping in the river today and am not sure why as she was already wet.

Five things I miss about Portugal:
Pai e Mae
No rain
Walking
Hearing the sea
Being able to learn another language and practice it on strangers

Five things I missed about England
May
Rain
Walking
Hearing the hub bub
my mates who I could chatter wildly too in a freestyle way and they could understand me

I will keep looking at the little gnome's blog to keep me up to date

Raining

I never thought I would be so excited by rain but it rained and rained. The soil is lying on top of the grass, thunder and lightening ~ the thrill of a simple thing. It has turned chilly (comparative to before) but nothing like home where there is snow.

Then followed by blue sky and then more rain but that leaves more time to finish the bane of my life the dreaded school jumper and Gretel beret for Bama to match her new Tank Top for School in the dirgiest regulation green colour ever.

Back to the knit....

Say goodbye to the Old, hello to the New

So it is time to say goodbye to all of last year and hello to this year, we couldn´t be in a better place to do it then with people who have made a dramatic leap from what they were doing this time last year.

So we wish you all the chance to follow your dreams in 2008

a walk on the beach

This is us, all of us walking down Falesia beach

The best feedback is the personal kind, you know when someone sends you a special message, says something very sweet or includes something of you in their life. When I make things there are always other things in my head and then you see how other people see them and it is all much better or different. The joy of making things and seeing them in other places.

beautiful things

We are getting ready for Christmas and that includes the annual photo selection for the family calendar for the grandparents and Aunties. Bunny does great photomanipulations, she is a genius and she wanted to trade so the solution was to Christmassy up the December shot - thank you Bunny ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

Bunny made this for me