Catch up on the past fortnight

The last few weeks seem to have flown by in a bit of a haze, I do however have some photos to show for it. Last week I held a sock monkey night at mine. It had come out of a conversation at a dinner party the week before when we had been discussing careers, making things and craft (yes I know a wide subject). Sara had said that her sister in law had been making these and could not keep up with demand. At which point she produced a book with some designs in and the ladies present oohhhed and aaaahhed at them. The blokes of course looked at us with raised eyebrows and responded with a why? They just don't get it. So any excuse for a night that included wine, girly talk and laughter was ok in my book. 7 of us got together and the above photo shows what we produced. Below is the monkey that Siv made but was still in the process of sewing together. I just love his lips they make me smile. Mine was the tiny grey mouse as Idecided to start small and work up, it is not as easy as you think to sew with socks! John received much banter at work the next day bless him but I think it was all in good spirits.

Wednesday night saw me frantically finishing off suitcases, hankies and gas masks for the kids mock evacuation at school the next day. They have been studying World War 2 as their subject this term at school.

Teddies in hand they disappeared into school for registration and then we had to tearfully wave them goodbye as they headed off in the bus for a secret destination.

They stopped at Mare Harbour enroute and sang some old songs which were recorded and then played on BFBS Radio, after which they headed off to meet their prospective foster parents. The kids came back full of it as they had been fostered by the Lord and Lady of the manor. They had to ask them questions for a paper report that would be written at school the next day. The kitchens taught them how to cook corn beef hash and spam sandwiches!

While they were away having fun I took my boy out for a longer run up to Mount Pleasant Peak. With lambing season in full swing there really aren't many places I can take him at present off of the lead. I didn't walk all the way up to the top due to it being rather nippy even though it was a wonderful clear and bright day.

As you can see my boy smiled his way around the hill, climbing up and down the rock faces and generally poking his nose into every crevice he could find looking for good smells.

Whispy clouds were whizzing by in the skies above and the sun shone a bright white light everywhere.

When my cheeks started to lose feeling I decided it was time to head home and get myself a well earned cup of tea, since I had already been to the gym as well at 6:30am that morning.
I had a tired happy dog sprawled out on his back with his legs in the air on my sofa for the rest of the day.

Thursday night John and I found ourselves sat out in the conservatory enjoying the warmth from the day and the slow fading light. My conservatory is starting to resemble a garden centre again as I have planted up all my seeds, grow bags and pots with salad and veg produce.

Little buds and leaves are popping up all over the place now and I will have to begin to thin out or re-pot some of the seedlings soon as they are a bit cramped. We have a large range of plants from carrots, lettuce, butternut squash, herbs, chilli's to peppers.

As we were sat in the conservatory chatting about everyones day, Fergus was busy making sure no one was going to sneak up on us. He was glued to the window watching the coming and goings of the street, barking at anyone he didn't know. Note the slobber stained window which is his main observation post.

This boy was telling us all about his football match at lunch while John was choking on his choice of game!

The sun was getting lower and lower in the sky and casting wonderful golden colour everywhere. Typical of me I had to get the camera out and take some silhouette shots to broaden my range of photos.

Out in the garden, Mrs Thrush was busy flying backwards and forwards with bits and pieces for her nest. She had started to build a beautiful nest in the tree just outside our kitchen window. Sadly, I think she has decided that the passing traffic is to much for her and has abandoned it.

Looking out across the close I noticed that the sun was starting to change to a rich golden yellow and dragging the kids and dog out we went to see what photos we could capture up on the ridge just behind the quarters.

Bent and twisted trees allowed me to experiment with some of the settings on my camera,

while children climbed trees and posed for me in the wonderful glow of the sunset. I haven't photoshopped these pictures at all, they are straight out of the camera. The light was absolutely stunning.

I had been hoping for a big bright sky of colour but with no clouds in the vicinity there just wasn't going to be that picture on this night.

It was still quite wonderful to watch. Afterwards it was home to finish homework and get ready for bed.

Friday arrived and I made the gym with my buddy Alex at 6:30am as usual. My times are slowly starting to improve but my calf is a bit sore so I need to watch what I am doing. I headed down to Darwin with Alex and a few other girls to spend the morning felting again. Last week I had started making a bowl from a ball (again another one of those bloke why's might have been asked). I mentioned Bonnie's place before and on this particular day the weather was fantastic.

These are the views from the back of Bonnie's crafting porta cabin. Not bad hey for an outlook.

This is my bowl half finished. I still need to add a ring at the bottom to make it stable on a surface and I want to add the flowers to the side with some big buttons.

I think next time I will add a few more layers onto the ball before cut it of.

Inside is of course my favourite pattern, polka dots!!

The flowers I am in the process of making to grace the sides.

After lunch we had the chance to go and feed the orphaned lambs without little children being present. Well I say that I think we all turned into little children taking our turn to hold the bottles and give each of them a cuddle.

I had a particularly wriggly one who just wanted to make sure that there was no chance of another bottle appearing from anywhere and him missing it.

The following morning we awoke to a pale but interesting sky making stripes across the horizon.

and then went to bed with another spectacular colour palette.

The pink clouds were my favourite.

The weekend was spent swimming, cleaning, christmas card painting and shopping for food. Not very exciting but John was on duty so we were restricted to the base.