Weekending Roundup

What a lovely weekend! The sun has made an appearance again and is set to stay with us for a while. I took every advantage and sat outside listening and watching the birds. We had some new visitors to the feeder this weekend, a couple of Green finches and their baby. I love spotting new visitors to the feeder. We have so many more birds visiting now that we are further away from suburbia. 

There is something quite lovely about being outside isn't there? It refreshes the soul. To feel the sunshine on your skin, to hear the birds singing with joy and the garden hum with insects is wonderful

I'm always amused that the moment I go outside to do a bit of gardening or simply sit quietly under the apple tree, the cats come running out to spend time with us there. They seem to delight in having their humans enjoy the outdoors with them.

I have a few new books that arrived this week so it was lovely to take them outside and read. It was one of my 'small things' that I take great joy in. The books pictured are 'Country Weekend Socks', 'Knitting the Perfect Pair', and 'The Wild Dyer'. Both the sock books are fantastic and a good addition to my knitting library. There are only a few pairs of socks that I probably would not knit, the rest are all on my To-Do list.

After 5 months of no knitting, I have finally picked up my needles again. I'm Knitting a pair of Hermione's Everyday Socks in my own yarn in the 'Apple Orchard' colourway. I love this sock pattern and I am loving the way 'Apple Orchard' is knitting up, it's so pretty. As I knit away under the apple tree I glance up and see this year's fruit coming along nicely and dream of apple pies, sauce, and my bramble apple jam that I make each autumn.

This year's sweet peas are a success again, 2nd year in a row so I am super happy with that.

I picked a bunch and put them in a little glass bottle on my coffee table. They smell heavenly! I love that in summer I can pick fresh flowers from my garden to enjoy indoors. 

We also paid a visit to the garden centre on Sunday where I bought a Courgette and a Pumpkin plant. I do hope that they do well and that we will be harvesting the fruit from them and my tomato plants in due course. I haven't planted up as big a vegetable garden this year as I would have liked and I'm a bit sad that I missed that opportunity. I had great plans and even signed up to take on an allotment nearby, but I realised that this year was not the right time for me what with so much change happening. Perhaps next year. I am going to get some potatoes going, they take about 12 weeks till harvest so I'm wanting to plan an autumn harvest and then a Christmas harvest of potatoes. I'm not sure if I will have any success but I'm going to give it a try. 

The raspberries are coming along nicely. We already have competition for them, the blackbirds have been snacking on them so I must get some fruit netting if we are to have our fair share this season.

And that about wraps up what I've been up to this weekend. Did you do anything fun or did you, like me, just enjoy the sweet joy of being at home?