April

It's a beautiful Spring day as I sit here typing this post. I've just had a very quick scan of my regular favourite blogs and will be back to read properly when I've finished this - it seems as though many of you are experiencing "challenges" at the moment, so well done you for managing even one post, let alone the several that I must catch up with. I'm late again, it scarcely seems worthwhile even mentioning it, as it happens so regularly these days.

However, some nice garden photos have galvanised me into action so here we are! I have actually sown my Square Foot Garden and can see the seedlings pushing through, also have a load of other seedlings in the greenhouse. I know this is very small beer to those gardeners among you, but to me it is a tremendous step forward, and I'm immensely proud of myself! No photos yet, though, as there isn't much to see.

I probably take the same photos every year, the garden is looking so fresh and pretty at the moment I can't resist.

This "Mystic Moonlit Hare" cushion was bought at the Fakenham Makers' Market last month by my lovely blogging friend Kathy Black, from Norwich, and having seen it on my face book page, someone has commissioned me to make a similar one for them.

Still got the detailing to stitch, and the two woollen disks at the right side are the hand-made buttons for the back. I'm also working on this one:

And completed this one last week :

Sorry not the best of photos. Here's the reverse, showing the hand-made buttons :

Also, in a burst of activity over the weekend I bought some chalk paint and wax and painted our kitchen stool. It is duck-egg blue, which is not the shade I'd wanted, looking for a soft, pale green, but I quite like it.

I bought the pale blue and a soft pink, and I have two dining room chairs I need to get my hands on - I've been gradually painting the four of them over .....erm....... two years!

I didn't do the craft fair this month, but I am about to apply to do another couple soon. Oh! And I can't finish without thanking my kind-hearted blogging friend Dc from frugal in norfolk blog, I know many of you follow her avidly. She has been to see me a couple of times now, and made her way, DH in tow, to bring me a bag full of lino boards and lino cutting tools, having had the conversation with me about lino-prints many months ago - you'll have to search back for those posts! Thanks so much Dc- whose name I shall never now forget but which I wouldn't dream of publicising here!

So a very Happy Spring to you all, and those of you who need it, I hope you receive kindness and support in your lives.

April Cheer

Apart from the fact that the day I decided to take these photographs happened to be a bit downcast, I think a bit of garden is quite the thing to keep up the cheeriness which broke out with the sunshine last week. We did suffer a bit with the Saharan sand-storm and other sundry pollutants, but thankfully it has passed on from East Anglia and my chest has stopped wheezing. That could of course be due to the steroids and antibiotics......

Our spring flowers are getting into their stride, and the garden is all prepped ready to be planted up and sown when the soil temperature improves a bit - and it is still very wet.

My mum has been moved from the acute orthopaedic ward out to a community hospital in Swaffham, about half an hour's drive away. I am so pleased she is there, I have high regard for the staff and their care here so I feel she is in a good place for the time being. We whizzed across to catch her for an hour the evening they transferred her, and as luck would have it, the session at the Canary and Linnet at Little Fransham falls on the same evening.  Tiny little pub with a small restaurant at the back and one small bar at the front. it was a bit of a squeeze but good fun.

Sarah is a brilliant fiddler, Dave on bodhran, Pete on flute, Terry on mandolin and Roger on uillean pipes

Jim propping up the bar. No, he wasn't bored, honest!

Rare shot of me on fiddle these days.

Georgia and I trying to pose.

It was just the pick-me-up I needed after the rather fraught week following mum's fall in her garden. It is her birthday on Monday - 92. She does pretty well considering, I think. We will have two days of family visiting and cards and cake tomorrow and Monday then we shall have to see how she is doing and what the Assessment Team think.

Just thought I'd pop in an extra post as I have been very lax these last few weeks. I would like to say a huge thank you to every one of you who have sent such lovely messages. Blogland may only be a 'virtual' community, but I am not the only blogger to have been on the receiving end of some wonderful heartwarming comments and support - and they DO count, believe me! It's all in the vibes, folks! Spread your kind intentions far and wide, and the world will be a nicer place.