Hi all, I hope you all had a wonderful Easter break. I had a lovely Easter with an unexpected week's holiday due to the holiday entitlement that I had unknowingly built up since starting work. It needed to be taken before the start of April so I had a fabulous week of pottering around the house and garden, watching movies, baking cakes and eating chocolate. It was lovely. I also had visits from two of my daughters and with a little help, I managed to get all the fences in my field mended. It's a great relief that it's sorted and it means the llamas now have their other field back to graze around in. 

I met my middle daughters new pug puppy, Bandit, for the first time when they came to stay for a couple of days. He's just sooooo cute and sooooo adorable. We had a lovely breakfast at Seaton Beach Cafe and a long walk on the beach. The weather was perfect. 

I baked some scones ..... and then I ate some scones :-)

And I played with some fabric. 

I will be hopefully opening my little Etsy shop in the not too distant future so at the moment, I'm busy sewing away. 

Also, very excitingly, I spotted that the robin's eggs in the nest outside my window have hatched. I can see the chicks in the nest. I've spotted three so far but there may be more further back in the nest. Again, like last time, the photos are taken through a dusty window because I don't want to open it to clean the outside in case I disturb them and they abandon the nest.

Daddy robin was on feeding duty. I spent this morning turning over a patch of earth to expose the worms and bugs for him to take back to his chicks. I didn't know male robins sat on the nest but they clearly do because the last photograph I took, the eggs hadn't hatched and he was definitely sitting on them. 

All in all, a lovely couple of weeks. 

Pity it's now back to reality and the dreaded work :-(

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I posted last. It's been a busy time, during which I turned 50 ....... nicer than I thought it would be, had a hospital appointment for my knee .....  a mean doctor who wrenched my knee, made me cry and then diagnosed a severe arthritis flare up and referred me for physio and I have continued to tame my out-of-control house ....... many, many trips to the tip to get rid of all the rubbish accumulated over 11 years of living here and finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I also did the first piece of sewing since giving up may market stall a month ago. I made this little chap. 

He's a pin cushion. He's only a prototype. I like to make a prototype so I can work out any kinks in the pattern and to decide whether or not it's something I feel I can make well, make relatively easily and make relatively quickly. I think he's very cute and I think once I have worked out a couple of issues in the making of him I will be making a whole load of these little dudes to sell on the little Esty shop that I am in the middle of setting up. It's very exciting. Did you know .... a whole bunch of tortoises is called a Creep. Who knew! I'm making a creep of tortoises :-)

I have also been making lots of thrifty food. My local Aldi were selling aubergines for 39p each so I bought a couple along with some courgettes and peppers and made some delicious ratatouille and some roasted vegetable lasagne. I made three large portions of each for the princely sum of £4.52. Total bargain and I love the feeling that I am filling up my freezer for the times when money is tight. I realise that some people think I mad, getting excited about being able to live on very little money but I get an enormous amount of pleasure from coming up with delicious food and money saving ideas. Weird I know but there you are.

Three courgettes, six peppers, two aubergines and 4 cans of tomatoes made all this roasted veg. 

I have also managed to tame my unruly sewing corner. Even though I have 3 spare bedrooms that I could take over to use as a sewing room, I like doing my craft and sewing in my living room. It's a big living room, about 35 feet my 15 feet so there is plenty of space but the thing I struggled with was keeping the space looking relatively tidy. I also needed more light so, I sorted out the storage issue with some oh-so-cute mini storage suitcases for things like embroidery thread, buttons and trimmings and some white baskets that I re-vamped with some white paint and a new anglepoise lamp. I have to say ...... I am totally loving my new sewing corner.

Now .... all I have to do is get sewing .... watch this space :-)