Heading south.

 

We’re on our way south!

Luckily the motorway is moving so we should hit our destination about 3pm. Just cast on my new holiday project,shades of the coast obviously. A pair of ankle socks, easy pattern and very transportable.perfect for car knitting.

Oops, another book purchase.

 Yesterday I dropped no 2 son to work and thought I'd pop into The Mall to pick up a few bits for holiday. It was heaving. Everyone it seemed was out buying bits for holiday. All I did was pop in to M&S to pick up an online order then went into Superdrug for some toiletries, by then I had had enough. I was mask wearing, which in this heat is not good in indoor areas, but it was so busy I felt I really needed to wear one. Most other people didn't feel the need for masks at all, including a lot of the shop staff. 

Ready to make way way out I thought it would be very rude of me not to pop into Waterstones to peruse the bookshelves, it was enroute to the exit after all.

I absolutely love a bookshop, I could spend ages in them. I really don't need a new book I have loads in my to read pile [s]  and there may have been another few acquisitions come via the devil that is Amazon this week as well. But I really couldn't  leave this one behind

Its a beautiful book to look and the story really appeals to me. I think I'm going to enjoy reading this one. Well at least I hope so, I still haven't got my reading mojo back.

Todays has been spent holiday prepping and I'm now off to go and eat roast beef with the boys and father in law before we leave them for a week...Yes I know its boiling but we really do love a roast and hubby is cooking... 

How refreshing.

Despite being woken up very early with thunderstorms it was lovely to be cool again. Its been raining on and off all morning and its feels very refreshing, I can almost here the garden breathe a sigh of relief.

As I was awake I decided to get up and do a spot of early morning knitting and podcast watching. I am still working on my test knit and really want to get it finished.

I actually managed to get the body cast off this morning so its just the sleeves and button band. I cant capture the colour but it is a gorgeous golden yellow. Its a short version with a short of waterfall front. Something I would never wear normally but I am feeling the yellow tones lately. I have decided that if, upon finishing I don't think I will wear the cardigan, I am a fickle creature being a fat woman, the yarn is far too nice to hide away  so I will rip it and reknit into another garment that I will wear.  I am having one of those body versus clothing moments.  Lockdown led me to a style of comfort dressing so now I am going out and about I'm struggling with what to wear and that I feel comfortable in. The extra lockdown and working from home weight gain  is not helping at all.

This also happened this week

I had my hair cut short ! 

This may well be a contributing factor to the clothing issue, I feel bare... it was down past my shoulders, now people can see my neck and shoulders it feels very weird, but also feels cool and fresh. I was starting to feel like I had a pair of boring long grey curtains on my head  and the daily washing after swimming was making it quite dull. I'm sure it will be fine when I get used to it. 

Happy Friday !

 That's it, I've finished work so am now officially on leave for 9 whole days. It's been a  long busy week but I got here. 

I swam every morning before work and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Its like a half hour of meditation. I really do think its had a positive effect on my mood. I've even booked up to go on Sunday and Monday Morning before we go away and have booked slots for my return. I actually think I'm going to miss swimming !

I now have a lovely weekend of relaxing, we have nothing planned other then to get packed. I am aiming to travel light, I've bought some packing cubes and have a travel iron so will not be stressing. The only thing I have to think about is what small knitting project to take?

Perranporth Beach. 

We will be staying here for 2 nights, strangely I don't think its going to be quite so empty next week !

A week in the life of.....

 Another week has passed without a blog post. I've not been away I just haven't felt the urge to blog. My life is actually very boring, I work full time and like a quiet life. I'm also quite guarded about what I do share and certainly wouldn't want to bore you with the mundane aspects of my life. 

So what have I been up to?

Swimming is going well. I'm trying to go everyday before work and it is really lifting my mood for the day especially in this heat. I do think my back and joints are appreciating some exercise!

Date night with hubby. This used to be a regular occurrence, hubs would come and meet me from work and we would go grab a few drinks and find somewhere to eat. Working from home has impacted but we set a date and off we went.

We went into Bristol centre, but stayed clear of the harborside as it was packed. We walked around , found somewhere nice to grab a meal and then walked a little more stopping for a couple more drinks before heading home and sitting in the garden till midnight !

Saturday we decided to go out as a family, again deciding to stay clear of the coast. We decided to head off to Wild Place. We booked an early slot due to the heat. 

Its a great place and really well set out. We felt covid safe the whole trip.  We all had a lovely time and it was great to do something as a family.

I've not read a page, have continued to work on my test knit, [will try take a pic] and have done little else other than try and keep cool. We have another quiet weekend  ahead but as of Friday 5pm I will be on leave. We're heading off to Cornwall for 6 days and living the boys at home. I am ridiculously excited but do hope it cools down a bit.... 

Book Binge.

 What can I say. I absolutely loved this series of books.

Caraval Trilogy

so much so I read the whole series in a  week. I just got sucked in. Poor hubs had to deal with a wife lost in a fantasy world. Not everyone's cup of tea but definitley mine.  

I'm now well and truly back into fantasy reading, luckily there are a few in my to read pile so I have pulled this out next

The night Circus.

The Circus arrives without warning

no announcement's precede it

It is simply there, when yesterday it was not

Had this for a while now, think I bought it on a trip to Cornwall, possibly Wadebridge. Really looking forward to starting this later, I wont be binge reading though as have a test knit to finish....

Glastonbury .

 Despite the dodgy forecast we set off for a weekend in Stan the van. We stayed at a lovely site, The Old Oaks, and had a great pitch.  I would definitley recommend if you like a quiet time. Its also walkable to Glastonbury but it is a bit of a steep climb!

We had a lovely time, Friday we just relaxed on site, Saturday we waited for the rain to stop and walked off to Glastonbury. We mooched around the village and had lunch in one of the pubs. We then popped back to site in a  taxi and spent the evening relaxing.

We are only 50 minutes away so this is a regular weekend spot. We've had walked to the Tor and visited the abbey and the chalice well on many occasions so didn't feel we needed to do it on such a brief stay. Its a place I love and is a yearly occurrence at least one. 

Happy Monday !

I have gone into this week in a much better frame of mind, it may be as I am planning to head out in Stan The Van on Friday or it may be due to my early morning swimming. What ever it may be it is nice to feel this way on a Monday.

Today I woke up to this

an amazing double rainbow, I'm taking it as a good omen.Another thing that may have impacted on my positive mood.

This past weekend I spent at home just pottering about with my crafty bits which was great and spurred on my desire to learn to sew. Despite making a big mistake with garment, see Saturdays post. I did enjoy getting my sewing machine out.

I started another book

The picture house by the sea.

It's not pulling me in yet and may be cast aside for something more challenging. This was picked up in a charity shop and will just go back onto the bookshelf for when I want a more light hearted read.

I've pulled these off of my shelves. I was given them as gift from one of my best friends who has similar reading tastes to me so am hopeful will love them.

Caraval

I'm away on a site visit tomorrow and travelling by train so will have time to read a  few chapters and see who it goes. Its a trilogy so am hoping I do like them.

We bought some cheap fairy lights for summer evenings 

Our seating area was taken over for Stan The Van's hard standing so I'm trying to make a cosy nook under the olive tree! It's still a work in progress and hubs is still painting the fence. Its a lovely place to sit, we get the sun into the early evening before it heads off behind the roof.Unfortunately we didn't get to sit there due to the rain and also had the planned BBQ indoors rather than out!

Other than a quiet happy weekend nothing of anything worth writing about occurred!

CoCo dress round 1.

 Weather forecast was rubbish so I decided to have a crafty day.

Unfortunately the sewing cottons didn't arrive for the over-locker and having watched a video for the coco dress where the the vlogger didn't recommend a new over-locker user to do the whole dress with an over-locker, I decided to do half and half. 

Pulled out the sewing machine, found a you tube video for the coco dress and off I went. My plan was to do the shoulders and neck on my sewing machine and get the over locker out for the side seams.

What could go wrong?

The blooming neck.....

Totally mucked it up, stretched out of shape, tried to rectify but it just looks horrid. Luckily I cut out the dress size so can cut down and make the shorter top version.

I stay stitched it, took it easy, followed all the blooming directions so not sure how I managed to stretch it so badly. My only thoughts are that the pattern asked you to sew both shoulders up then do the neck, so somewhere will jiggling around I must have stretched it. Next time I am only going to sew up one shoulder seam so its easier to do neck and then sew the other shoulder up.

I do think I may have been wiser to start off with a non stretch fabric to get back in the swing of things....

Just what I needed.

 Well this happened this morning

I went swimming ! [photo from internet as didn't have my phone on me.]

I've been in such a low mood and focusing too much on my weekends away so I decided to take action and get some things going that I used to really enjoy.

Swimming being one of them. I'm not lucky enough to live near the cost for sea swimming but I do have a really close leisure centre. So I dithered about a bit, made sure my costume fitted and went and booked in.

I went this morning before work and loved it. It had to be booked and paid for in advance. There was a really good system in place to be covid safe, limited numbers, lane swimming, either fast, medium or slow pace. I went for slow! I think there were 6 people in my lane, which was actually 3 lanes wide. didn't get too close to anyone and felt safe throughout. Unable to shower after but I had enough time to have one when I got home.

I managed 20 lengths in 25 minutes! So impressed with myself and felt so good after, its really lifted my mood. 

I've now joined the monthly scheme so it works out at £5 per week to swim as often as I like and can even use the gym.I think I'll stick to swimming for now.