Four Day Weekend!

I am halfway through a four day weekend (a much needed one!) and enjoying every minute. On Friday I popped into town for some ingredients and ended up coming back with another bunch of scented stocks, slightly darker in colour but still as pretty. They were reduce so they won't last very long but for now the two bunches look and smell utterly gorgeous.

Friday was really hot and sunny, Ziggy melted like vanilla ice cream into the flowerbeds, completely zonked out.

We have gorgeous flowers popping out all over the garden, the latest addition to the display being these lilies. They really are magnificent aren't they?

My blue Hydrangea has started spreading itself out and the heavy flower heads are beginning to droop downwards. I bought a big pot this afternoon with plans to re-pot both this plant and my SoE Show rose which is outgrowing its current pot.

We have one or two Foxgloves as well. They don't really seem to like our garden so we don't get many- but we do appreciate the ones that appear. The bees absolutely adore them and the plant on our patio is always buzzing with golden dusted bees.

The hanging baskets are a triumph (well done Dad), and even the kiwi plant has joined in! This is our first proper flowering year for our kiwi plant, it flowered once before several years ago, but the flower stems seem to be particularly fragile and the wind blew them off. This year though there are flowers all over it which is delightful.

They are fantastic looking flowers, neat white petals and a crazy mess of long stamens.

I made a cheesecake on Friday night- which didn't last very long in this house of gannets. It was delicious though (the secret is to put digestive biscuits and honey in the base).

I spent ALL day in the garden yesterday, working on my current hexagon crochet blanket. I finished making and adding the half hexagon shapes to the long edges (pattern for these can be found here), darned in all of the edges and began frolicking along the edge. Such a brilliant word, frolicking, I looked it up in the thesaurus, some fab words came up:

Cavort          Gamble          Caper          Carouse          Frisk          Lark          Play          Prance          Revel          Riot          Rollick          Romp          Sport         Spree          Whoop It Up

It was quite nice having a big blanket to snuggle up under as the weather wasn't fantastic yesterday- we even stayed out there during a brief rainy spell, huddled underneath my rainbow umbrella- but I felt the need to be outside, and my ever faithful companion was there to keep me company, even though he probably thought I was completely daft.

(By Harriet)                                                     (By Hazel) 

In the post I had my 'Really Flowery' returns- well worth the wait. Although I am drawn to almost anything stitched, I think the favourite from this batch was the painted/stencilled one from Carol. The colours and shapes and textures within the paint are really lovely and eye catching. All fabulous additions to my ever growing collection.

 (By Carol)