Snapshots of a week

♥ High tea with friends on Sunday.  I thoroughly enjoyed this and have plans to make this a regular feature of life in our house.  Cake, cheesy nibbles and wine.  Dreamy, dreamy!

Look - a bowl of tomatoes - just to prove it wasn't all high-sugar, high-calorie fare. Tokenism, that's what it is.

♥ Some of my beautiful new Pip collection.  It gives me a little thrill every time I catch sight of the dresser.  Once upon a time it used to be Hobbs shoes, now it's plates....

♥ A lovely, sunny day at home with my two smallest babes.  All the more lovely because my middlest child was supposed to be at school, so it felt a bit naughty.  (If you happen to be a teacher and reading this - he did have a temperature the night before, honest.)  We pottered and potted:

♥ My first session on my new and lovely allotment (more, oh so much more, on this to come):

Do you know what Mr N said when he saw this photo?  'Bloody hell, look at my hairline.'  You'd need a magnifying glass to even see his head, but like a laser, his eyes were drawn to it.  Pa-ra-noid.

♥ Still working away on my granny ripple blanket and really, really loving it:

I'm in ripple heaven, me. x

Giveaway winner and other smiley things

Happy, happy, happy little crocuses - little purple beauties, all the more lovely because they're a great early source of nectar for our poor, struggling bees.  I fear I have confirmed my neighbours' suspicions that I have completely taken leave of my senses by plodding outside in my slippers today to take a quick photo of them looking all beautiful and luminous in the afternoon sun.  Having said that, Mr N was somewhat surprised to meet our neighbours outside in their pyjamas one particularly windy night when I sent him outside to investigate an ominously loud crashing sound - it was our recycling bin hitting the deck and distributing its contents all over the driveway.  I believe he said something like 'evening' to our neighbours, as they picked the contents of their paper bin from their front garden, and proceeded to act like it was, in fact, quite normal to be outside with no underwear on in the middle of the night in a gale.
Another little bit of happy for me today was a luxurious, child-free lunch spent sitting in my dining room messing about on the Internet, eating my new favourite thing:

Toasted ciabatta with cherry tomatoes, red pepper, mozarella and basil.  (ooops, I just dribbled on the keyboard).
And another happy thing is this:

While I was enjoying said yummy ciabatta, I wrote down the names of all you lovely people who entered my giveaway and put them in one of my lovely new Pip bowls.  I shut my eyes tight and pulled out:

Congratulations Cupcakejojo - I know you've been having a bit of a rum old time of things lately, so I hope that this little parcel with bring a smile to your face.  Please just email me your address and I'll get it in the post to you pronto.  Thank you so much to everyone who entered and I'm sorry you couldn't all win something!  It is my mission now to have a good old look at 'new-to-me' blogs - I'm so looking forward to meeting some lovely, new people!
The final thing that's been making me smile, and I'll say this very quietly for fear of jinxing things...is it me, or is spring in the air? x

♥ Things on my table

A little bit of early morning sun casting beautiful shadows on my favourite little tablecloth (my granny would be horrified at all the wrinkles being thrown into relief here).  I've been relishing the sun and slightly cursing the mugginess at the same time (I feel guilty for even writing that) - it's all very well being lovely and sunny, but enough of the shiny-face-inducing clamminess.  Thank you.
Humbuggishness aside, it was a joy to spend time sitting at the garden table peeling half a ton of apples that a friend gave me:

Mmmm, a cup of tea and a bit of peace and quiet while baby n was asleep - is it wrong that I love this time so much?  I do adore my daughter but really, I do love my time alone while she sleeps.  Guilt...

And my favourite table scene of all?  Why, it doesn't get any better than this:

It upsets me too much when my wine, in its unsteady wine glass, gets spilt all over the table.  I have learnt from experience, my friends.  Take it from me, beakers are the future x

Beach and beech

 

I just thought I'd quickly share my last few photos of Dorset with you before I do a proper post about the weekend.  I honestly could have spent the whole time we were away, taking photos - I just love it down there.  (If I knew how to make the word 'love' flash there, I would - that is the extent of my adoration).  And, rather excitingly, the reason I couldn't do this post last night is because Mr Nut was using the computer to complete a job application for a job in....the southwest!  I have everything crossed for him (which is making it rather hard to type...)
So...one of our little outdoorsy activities was to visit a lovely National Trust property near my mum's that we often go to when we are visiting her.  The boys love it because the woods there are perfect for playing Robin Hood, having battles, building dens and having all manner of boy-related fun.
I love it because it's beautiful:

(I've no idea who the woman in the hat is - I hope she doesn't mind being on my blog!)

I wandered around with my mouth open taking pictures and having an internal debate about whether beech trees or oak trees are my favourite (sometimes I remind myself of Homer Simpson), baby nut tottered around looking at twigs and periodically sitting down for a bit of a leaf-scrunch and the boys got on with an important construction project:

It was generally quite idyllic and brilliant really and then, as if it couldn't get any better, we had an ice cream.  Happy days indeed.

And the second little outdoorsy activity I've yet to show you, was a trip to the beach (natch).  This was a bit of an impromptu visit and we weren't very well prepared, but it was still lovely.

What picnic is complete without jam sandwiches?

 What is it about boys that makes them need to have rough and tumble (does everyone call it that, or is it just us??) at absolutely any time and in any situation?  Will they every grow out of it?  Will I be sad when they do?

I say we weren't very well prepared, but of course I did have my crochet with me - like I've said before, I have got my priorities! x

Happy Easter!

I love this little arrangement of chicks that big nut had set up on my mum's dining room table.  It makes me think of Saturday Night Fever.  They're actually wearing little flares - you just can't see them because of the angle of the photo.  Also, I love the fact that each chick is standing on the colour square that most closely matches their own colour - now that's a level of coordination that I am very proud of!
Today was another stunner - wall-to-wall sun and lots of outdoorsy fun.

Just look what the Easter bunny brought for baby nut.  Isn't he clever to know that she can't have chocolate?
There was no such chocolate-free nonsense for the two bigger nuts, however:

I was rumbled while taking the photo above.  Here's the scene two seconds later:

Hmmmm - a pretty good haul...

We spent the afternoon at my gran's house.  Her garden really is amazingly lovely and so I, obviously, went completely overboard on the gratuitous flower shots.  I took so many, in fact, that I'm going to have to do a separate post about just that! 

The adults spent the afternoon slumped in chairs in the garden, while the three nut children variously ran around like loons, played football, ate mud and grass, had battles, ate as much chocolate as they could without us noticing, and practised their new-found walking skills (oh yes, baby nut is really no longer a baby - not sure 'toddler nut' has quite the same ring to it though.)  

As we were all starting to crash down from our chocolate-induced sugar highs, we brought out high tea (a bit of a feature of Sunday afternoons at my gran's - and long may it continue):

This was a 'scripture cake', which I made from my new recipe book.  I'm not a religious person at all (nothing against it, it's just not a feature of my life), but this seemed a highly appropriate cake to be eating on Easter Sunday - it was made only with ingredients mentioned in the bible.  And despite having a slightly soggy middle (I'm not the most patient person in the world and couldn't wait to get it out the oven), it was very yum indeed!
Hope you had a lovely, sunny, chocolatey day too x

Easy like Sunday morning...

Today I had one of those blissfully calm mornings that, frankly, don't happen often round here.  I was out the house before half seven to let my friend's chickens out for the day.

And what a momentous day it was - all four of those lovely birds had laid an egg.  At under 20 weeks old, this is pretty good going.  Well done girls!
My friend with the chickens (let's call her Mrs Hen) has got one of those beautiful gardens that you can just gaze at and marvel at how everything looks so vigorous and alive and healthy.  I would dearly love a garden like hers, but I'm just not sure how compatible it would be with the football pitch element of my garden.  One day, maybe...

Back at home, I enjoyed the early morning quiet while I hung out a lot of washing.  There was so much washing that I ran out of pegs.  That doesn't often happen - I have a lot of pegs.

It was just so lovely to be out in the garden on my own, enjoying the sun, while Mr Nut was inside making pancakes for breakfast and containing the mayhem as best he could. 
Everywhere I turned, I saw things bursting into life:

This lovely little bay tree had been sitting by the door, waiting to be potted up, for several weeks and I finally got around to giving it a new home:

The smell from the leaves as I rubbed against them was just lovely, as it was from my four little blackcurrant bushes when I spread some lovely compost around them.  I have high hopes for a good crop this year - I was amazed to see teeny blackcurrants already forming among the leaves (if you look carefully, you can just see them right in the middle of the top photo, at the base of the leaves):

I almost had to do a little happy dance when I saw these, but as they're in the front garden and I was therefore visible to all my neighbours, I thought I better hadn't.  I think they already suspect I'm completely bonkers though - who in their right mind would get down on their knees in the flowerbed to take photos??
These little beauties have yet to receive any attention from me, however:

Can you just see the tiny new berry in the middle of this photo?  I bought these little alpine strawberries at the local farmer's market this morning - the lady selling them told me they're especially good in jam.  And who am I to argue with that idea? x