Well, that's a first! Someone asked me to do the Liebster Blog Award thingy. I am flattered, I have never been asked to do anything like this before and despite the fact that the person who nominated me is my lovely daughter, I am still very excited to do it. So here goes. Firstly, thank you to Lucy at Becoming Mama Lucy for the nomination. (By the way, you should check out her latest blog post about my little Grandson and his nursery escapades, I laughed ..... A LOT lol !!)

These are the rules.

And here are my ten questions.

Meeting my little Grandson for the first time was pretty special but honestly, there really are far too many to pick just one.

If you could rule the world what would you change?

Anyway, those are my questions and answers. I now have to nominate 5 other blogs to do the same thing and I have to think of 10 questions to ask them. 

So, here are my blog nominees 

What Katie Did Next .......

Rosie's Ramblings.

Country Bumble

Lucy's Cottage

Frugal In Derbyshire

And here are my ten questions.

1. What is your favourite meal?
2. What has been your best ever bargain buy?
3. What are your top 3 favourite films?
4. If you could invite 3 people for dinner, either living or dead, who would it be?
5. What was the last book you read?
6. You are stuck in a well and the cast of the last television programme you watched are coming to rescue you ..... who will be hauling you out? (Mine would be the cast of Gardeners World, I watched an episode I recorded a while back last night before bed lol)
7. Marmite .... Love it or Hate it?
8. If you could have a super-power, what would it be?
9. What did you have for breakfast this morning?
10. What is the one thing that makes you think of Summer

What a difference! The weather is sunny but breezy and apart from a short, sharp hail shower this morning while I was feeding the llamas, it's been surprisingly fine. I realise I'm just being a hopeless optimist but it's nice to see the sun again ...... even if it does highlight just how dirty my windows are! Not only is the weather nice but things are beginning to sprout. I went for a walk down the lane this morning after finishing the sad task of burying Amelia Pond, one of my original pair of chickens. My other one died a few weeks ago and sadly, I had to have Amelia put to sleep yesterday. Anyhow, I thought a walk in the sun would be just the thing to cheer me up so I grabbed my camera and headed off down the track. 

It doesn't look like much is happening from a distance but when you get closer, things are definitely starting to sprout.

I have no idea what these little tufts of greenery are but it's nice to see some lovely green shoots popping up.

My daffodils have been out for about 10 days now I can't believe they're so early.  I even had some miniature daffs sprout in an abandoned hanging basket that I had taken to the compost heap and forgotten to tip out!!

As I was walking back home, in the bush next to the road was this cheeky chappie. He was singing at the top of his lungs, I've never noticed before how piercing robin song actually is, he was making a right old racket but he obligingly stood still for a good 5 minutes while I snapped away. 

As to the bag of twigs, About 4 weeks ago, a junk email pinged into my inbox from a well known plant company and I was about to delete it when I noticed they had an amazing offer on. 12 bare root shrubs for £12 plus P&P. I thought it was a bargain so I decided to order some. They arrived yesterday looking a little less awe-inspiring than I had anticipated but nevertheless I can't wait to get them planted up. They're in pots at the moment until I can sort out the ideal spots for them. 

Now, if only the nice weather would hold out for more than a day I could get to it :-)

Hi there everyone, how's it going? It's been a while since I posted anything because not only do I have an arthritic knee to contend with but I now also have a badly damaged hamstring to further complicate things! It's been a nightmare few weeks because everything seems to take so much longer when you're limping. It also takes so much more energy to do the smallest of tasks, not to mention being near impossible to carry a bale of hay while using crutches! Still, I'm hoping that a bit of rest and some pain killers will do the trick and it won't be too long before I'm back to my usual self, rushing about the place trying to get everything done. 

I have some photos to share with you of things I was doing before the accident ..... I tripped over a cat while I was hobbling at great speed down the corridor and hyper-extended my leg causing the hamstring injury. Painful!!

Some lovely liberty fabric arrived.

Well, I am totally into all this de-cluttering malarkey. I have now completely emptied most of kitchen cupboards and I have dumped maybe 70% of the stuff that was in there. A good 20% of what was left has gone either to charity shops or is being saved to make a bit of money in the summer when the car boot sales start and what is left has been put through the dishwasher or thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed and has been put back into the lovely spotlessly clean cupboards. It's heaven! I still have some of the food cupboards left to sort out and then I intend to paint anything that doesn't move with brilliant white paint. After that, I can start the fun bit of putting everything back in and making it look pretty. My knee also seems to be behaving itself at the moment too so I am getting a fair amount done before I have to stop and give it a rest.

The sun has made an appearance again which is also nice. It makes me feel so much happier when the sun is out, even if it's not particularly warm. There are signs of life all over the place. 

The snowdrops are starting to flower. 

The daffodils are starting to come through although for some reason this year they are looking very small and stunted, almost like mini-daffodils.

The plant in the next picture, believe it or not, is a sweet pea plant, kind of an everlasting variety. It was given to me by one of my lovely friends when it was past its best and could no longer be sold at the market and I am ashamed to say I dumped it in a bag and left it on the table outside my house. Miraculously, it survived the dry weather last year, it survived being soaked and blown around during the wet and windy Autumn and it has survived the bitterly cold spell we have just had. I think the least it deserves is planting nice and deep in a big pot or maybe next to my wooden arch so it can clamber over it and make it look fabulous. So, as soon as I have finished blitzing the kitchen, I will make sure it's sorted out and find a nice permanent place for it to go. 

And, last but by no means least, my chickens are starting to lay again which is fabulous. My two girls are now laying me an egg every couple of days. They do sterling work keeping me in delicious eggs during the lighter months and I usually get two eggs each day from them from about April 'til the clocks go back in October but, during the shorter days and chilly weather, they take a break from their egg laying duties and concentrate on keeping warm and cosy. They tend to get a bit spoilt in the winter and they love it when I make them some nice warm porridge for breakfast when it's cold. This year, they will be getting a really really big walk-in run so I can open the door during the day when I'm home to keep an eye on them and they can free range around the garden and when I'm not home to look out for them, they will have a really big area to run around in. I have already bought it and it's standing in my hallway waiting for the weather to improve a bit more and my knee to get a bit better then I will be putting it together for them.  

Right, back to the kitchen to finish off the last of the cupboard clearing !

Every year, around about this time, as the weather is warming up and the days are getting longer, I get the urge to move house. This is a throwback to the time when my family and I moved house every couple of years with my husband's job. We had decided that, until my eldest daughter was in secondary school and starting on her GCSE's, we would move around the country with him because we felt it was more important for them to have a relatively normal family life with both parents around than for me to stay in one place with them by myself. Thirteen years ago, the girls and I finally settled in Cornwall, at the start of my eldest daughter's GCSE's, and it was then that I discovered that I quite liked moving house! I didn't miss the packing or the unpacking of the endless boxes but I did miss the thrill of finding new things to see and places to visit and I also loved the possibilities a new house brings, the chance to put your own stamp on it, even if only in a small way. Staying in one place, however, was necessary for the girls and now, moving house is no longer an option so I find new ways to change my surroundings. Now I move the furniture and I paint things. In fact I move anything that isn't either nailed down or too big and heavy to move and I paint anything that stands still for more than 2 minutes!

Today, as I sat outside in the beautiful sunshine having a quick cup of tea, I knew that the time had come. I Knew it was time to get moving and painting. So, I grabbed a paintbrush, trundled off to my paint stash and grabbed a tin of paint. This year, I'm getting the urge to put more colour into my home. Everything is white or cream at the moment with just accent colours from cushions and throws but I'm thinking that now I want colour. Lots of colour. Think Cath Kidston. Think floral and think lots and lots of it. I started with two of my battered chairs that I use at my sewing table in the living room. 

They went from drab 

To fab

In about 30 minutes.

It will need another coat of paint and then I will wax it with my Annie Sloan clear wax to make it a bit more durable and then onto my next dilemma, what colour to paint the other chair, the table, the over-mantle mirror, the kitchen chairs, the kitchen table, the walls ....... well, you get the idea :-)

It's been a lovely couple of days here in Cornwall. Friday and Saturday were sunny and the skies were blue making the local produce market at Trerulefoot, a much nicer place to be than in the freezing conditions of a couple of weeks ago when I was wearing at least 4 layers of clothes, (including thermal shirts and leggings) and I was still blue with cold by the time I got home. I really love my three days at the market. Despite the sometimes cold weather, it's a really enjoyable place to be. The people are lovely, there is a fabulous atmosphere and the range of skills and products available is amazing. A lovely old couple, Penny and Brian, produce hand made wooden planters, bird tables and such like and they grow plants and herbs to fill them with. A couple of weeks ago, they were given a commission for a wishing well and because the people had a big garden they wanted a BIG wishing well. Brian did a fantastic job of designing and building it and here is the finished article, on display at the market, waiting to be collected. The handle even turns and the bucket winds up and down. 

There is a lady who does fabulous stained glass and wooden painted items and if you give her a picture of your pet she will turn it into a fabulous key rack or a hook for a dog lead with a picture of your pet on the front. There are local jams, jellies and chutneys, home made cakes, vegetables and plants, locally produced apple juice and cider and free range organic eggs and meat. Give me a local market any day of the week. I now do most of my shopping at the market. We eat locally produced vegetables,  free range organic eggs, meat that was running around in a field the week before and which was organically and ethically reared and I spend three days out in the fresh air chatting with people both local and from further afield and I even, on occasion, make a bit of money.

Pea and bean sticks and bags of manure at the market ready for Spring planting.

As the weather is warming up, everything seems to be coming to life. Flowers are beginning to bloom, birds are singing their noisy dawn chorus even earlier in the mornings and there are now lambs and calves in the fields around the house making a huge racket at 6am. It's lovely. I love the lighter mornings. I'm much more of a morning person. It's nice to have the lighter evenings too but, for me, the best part of the day is first thing in the morning when everyone else is still asleep and things are calm and peaceful and quiet ....... well except for the birds, the sheep, the cows and the owls hooting their way back to their trees to sleep until dusk when they go off out again to hunt :-) Whoever said it was quiet living in the country had obviously never lived there. 

So, here are some pictures of the things that are beginning to bloom in the lovely sunny weather.

Pink Tinged Daffodils.

Forget-Me-Nots in the border.

The pulmonaria that I bought from the market is flowering like mad.

And the fabulous evergreen Clematis called Wisley Cream that I bought from my friend Bridget at the market  and keeping one of my tea cosies company on my stall.

Well, Sunday was a lovely day. It was sunny, bright and kind of sparkly and there was a real whiff of Spring in the air. With my washing on the line blowing briskly in the breeze, I decided to snap a few photos of what I am hoping are the first signs of spring. I really don't like winter. The cold weather makes me want to hibernate and eat stodgy, warm, comforting food, which is fine, until it gets to Summer, at which point I regret the puddings, pies and casseroles.

On my post a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had planted the seeds in the lovely herb planter that my daughter Meg had given me for Christmas and last week I noticed that the seeds were beginning to sprout and the basil was just beginning to poke through the soil.

I have a fabulous craft shop in a town close to where I live and I love going into the shop, not  only because they sell gorgeous fabrics and trimmings and things but because they have such wonderful works-in-progress being made by people on the fabulous craft courses which they run. The courses are very popular and I'm usually too late to sign up because they get booked up quite quickly. This time however, I managed to get onto a course I have wanted to have a go at for quite some time. It's a carpet making workshop. I'm really looking forward to it. We get to make this cute little owl wall hanging using this intriguing rugging tool. It's called an Oxford Punch Needle (I wonder if anyone out there in Blogland has used one of these things?). Apparently they're quite expensive but I've seen the results and they are fabulous. I can't wait to get started.