A Cornish mini break.

This weekend we should have been on Lundy, another holiday sadly bumped until next year.

Instead we headed off to Cornwall. We stayed just outside of Falmouth and despite the horrendous weather forecast it was not too bad.

We arrived Friday evening and just had a quiet one, then on Saturday we headed over to the north coast as the Weather was set to be better over there.

Perranporth, one of my favourite places, so good to be back.

The weather was great, chilly breeze but stayed dry. We even managed to grab lunch in the watering hole...

It really was great to be back here, we walked along the whole length of the beach and back, sadly Seiners wasn't open, we usually stay here

It's the blue building, but we are booked in later in the year for a couple of nights. Our room looks straight down the beach.

Sunday started like this

 and didn't really get much better. 

We decided to head over to Marazion in the hope we might get a walk. we only managed a short walk  and then got drenched. It was also very breezy, but it was great and certainly blew the cobwebs out. 

It did actually look like this for about 10 minutes, then it blew over and went grey!

We ended up sat in the car with a cup of hot chocolate!

All in all it was a great weekend and a very much needed dose of Vitamin Sea. 

Now its back home and back to reality. 

Until my next mini break anyway....

WIP wednesday.

 There has been some knitting this week ! I've managed to remain focussed on 2 projects and am seeing progress!

First up is my Bee sweater

I am so near finishing this I am excited, it may be ready for the next camping trip. If I knit it again I would go down a size and knit it longer, or swap to smaller needles after the colorwork section. the body fits ok but there is some room for shrinkage !  but it fits and given it was meant to be a cardigan I am chuffed to bits that I have a wearable jumper. 

Then I picked up these socks

Plain Vanilla socks for me , knit West Yorkshire Spinners signature 4 ply, colourway is summer sunset. I love these socks, I love the colour and the simplicity of the knit . These are very much a comfort knit.

Then on the wheel I have

 

Spin Jones Batts, 2 separate Batts of 50g each. I am spinning them opposite ways so looking forward to seeing how they turn out. This is one of her old colourways, pulled from stash. Twilight colourway and a mix of merino, mulberry silk and eri silk. Spinning up lovely !

Pretty impressed with my knitting and spinning this week .

Escaping.

 After the stress of the week hubby and I decided to set off for a couple of nights to get out of the house despite the awful weather forecast. The house just doesn't feel right without Frank :(

we had 2 nights booked at a local campsite, and with the agreement of my boss who is great at facilitating remote working we set off to arrive when we were allowed in. We were were booked into Petruth paddocks, about a half hrs drive from home. 

We were pretty lucky with the weather and managed to miss most showers. It was a bit chilly for sitting out at night but we managed a BBQ Friday night and had a nice walk on Saturday.

It was pretty quiet 

nice big pitch

A nice walk around cheddar

Then it was homeward bound Sunday Morning.

It was lovely to get away but we really noticed Franks absence when we got home. 

No 1 son seems to have been hit hardest bless him. Frank was our 3rd rescue lurcher and all had health issues, we just weren't aware of Franks so were completely unprepared for his death.

I am sure we will adjust in time and am in no doubt that somewhere in the future there will be another  lovely hound destined to come live with us. All 3 just happened upon us. 

Thank you so much for your wishes, They are appreciated.

RIP Frank.

 Our beautiful Frank sadly crossed the rainbow bridge yesterday.

We are all devastated as it was so unexpected. A week or so back he appeared to sustain a sprain in one of his back legs, was seen by vet and given meds and an x-ray was booked in. Sadly on Tuesday both his back legs gave way , he was unable to move them and he was in quite a lot of distress. He was monitored overnight and as there was no improvement we sadly had to make the decision to ease him of his pain and discomfort. The vet thought it was a probable embolism or tumour as there was no pulse in either leg and he had reduced blood flow to his legs.  

He will be greatly missed by us all. The house is very empty without him.

May goals.

It's almost half way through the year and I feel like I've just been treading water.  This 3rd lockdown really hit, much worse than the previous two. It almost felt like I went into hibernation, I've been sat here in my little box room office, communicating by various means ,but not much actual real contact.  Now I feel like movement is needed. I want to start moving forward, doing things, achieving things. 

On my old blog I used to do a monthly goals post. Nothing major just things I wanted to do over the month. Things to keep me motivated and on track. I'm thinking to give it a go again!

So here goes, my monthly goals for May:

Reading:

Finish reading homesick, almost there and really enjoying it so far. Then my goal is to read 2 books this month. I've really lost my reading mojo recently, normally I would read everyday, at least 2 chapters but I've been spending far too much time on social media, this month I'm going to get that mojo back. 

First up is The secrets of Sunshine,

I'll be honest I probably bought it because the cover is so pretty!

Then I want to read 'All the murmuring bones'

This popped up on my Facebook page and it just appealed to me, had to buy it, now want to read it. 

Neither of the books is particularly big so I should be able to get these 2 done over May.

Knitting.

I've been suffering from Castonitis, and really need to shrink the amount of projects I have on the go.

My first project is 'Passerby'

 

I couldn't get a good picture that shows the colour so here's one from Woolbaths page , I bought  the yarn from there... its a great shop, please drop by if you are ever in Bath.

Its called ' artisan', its a puce green and I love it. The sweater just needs to be stitched up and then washed and blocked. It knit up really quick, would recommend this pattern. I actually finished this a couple of weeks back and its been sat in the project bag, it will most likely stay there unless I actually finish it....

Then I am still knitting on this

I did actually get down to the cuff on the first sleeve but then realised that I knit the wrong colorwork section so I need to rip back a couple of rows, but I'm almost done with sleeve 1. This has been on the needles for far to long so it needs to get done, its also going to be a great camping sweater for adventures in Stan the van. 

Then the last knitting project for this month that I want to get finished is my beautiful Baable hat. I love everything about this hat, I just hope its going to fit, 

I only have about 6 rows left to do on this so it should be done pretty quickly. Now I only need to stay focussed on these projects and not get waylaid by pretty yarn and new patterns.

Spinning.

I'm really enjoying my spinning at the moment. My goal is to be able to spin a light sock weight yarn, in 3 ply. I'm still away off of that yet and my general result is a 2 ply DK .  Currently on the wheel I have this beauty

Its an old Batt from Spinjones, she doesn't do the colour anymore its been in my stash that long... Its 100g and came in 2x 50g batts so its going to be another 2 ply. I am thinking of getting a weavers knitting loom and using my hand spun up in weaving projects.. not that I need another hobby. 

Then I have just bought 3x 50g batts of this beauty

I've definitely gone to the green side the past month, I even bought 2 new green summer tops for work.

As I have 3 of these batts this is going to be my first attempt at getting a sock weight 3 ply yarn.

Health.

This is one area I really need to get back on track with. Old bad habits have crept in during lockdown 3, my daily walks fell by the wayside and far too many treats made their way to my desk. My daily step counts vary from an embarrassing 3k on a bad office day to 13k on a weekend when I am off out for a walk

My goal for this month is to walk daily, to hit a minimum of 5k on a bad office day, those are the days where I am in all day meetings which needs prep before hand and admin after. But then to hit 10k if possible on a normal working day. 

One of the other things I really want to get back into is swimming. Our local pool is now open, I just need to pop by and see how it works, I think you have to book a lane swim, they have fast, medium and slow lanes..

In addition to the above I need to start prepping my daily food as if I was going out to work, that way I should be able to stay on track and actual start to lose the inches again.  I'm not worried about numbers I just want to feel healthier and fit back into all my old clothes.

And that's it, goals for the month, all achievable, nothing too drastic or unrealistic. Lets see how I get on this month.     

Holiday weekend and the hound.

 We were all set to jet off in Stan the Van on Thursday for a long weekend, but plans changed as our old hound hurt his leg. He went haring off down the garden to chase a bird and ended up doing the splits with his back legs. He already suffers from joint discomfort, but he was howling with pain and couldn't walk. Hubs got him up to the vet, by which time he was weight baring but still limping. She checked him over and has booked in in for some X-rays. It could be a simple sprain that may heal but it could potentially be a tear to his cruciate ligament. So we decided the best course of action was to stay home and try to keep him still and comfortable to allow for some healing. Both boys would have been home, but also working at times and we didn't want to leave them the responsibility especially if he got worse. Hubs actually slept downstairs with him the past 2 nights. 

I decided to keep the Friday booked off as holiday and as no 1 son was home all day yesterday to sit with Frank, we headed out to Bath for the day. It was lovely we took the train and just mooched about. It was a bit chilly and it started to rain towards the end of the day but it was nice to be able to walk around somewhere different.

It was busy but not as busy as Bath normally would be. We managed to find outside tables when we wanted a refreshment, I also managed to pick up some bargains from Fat Face, grabbed some summer footwear from Schuh and a couple of books from a charity shop. 

I was a bit disappointed with the book selections, I thought there may have been more seeing as we've been in lockdown and reading more, but pleased with these. I have read her books before and like her style.

Today is a relaxed day of faffing in the house, both boys are working, hubs is currently sat with Frank, i'm going to do my bits and bobs then go sit and knit so hubs can go visit his dad. The evening meal is already prepared so it really will be a quiet day.