I am still tickled pink by Jenny’s lovely giveaway that I think that it is time to return the favour.

The giveaway will run until the 30th April and then I will pick a name at random.

What is in the giveaway I hear you ask, well I thought as it was my first giveaway a skein of Wollmeise would be in order. I’m not sure which colour, mainly because I couldn’t decide which one to put up. So if you really favour a colour or hate a certain colour this is for you as we can talk if you win. And there will be a few other bits and bobs that I find put into your package.

And what would I like you to write about.

What is your favourite fruit or vegetable and your first memory of it?

Mine is tomatoes, barely a day goes by that I don’t eat a tomato, either a cherry tomato popped into my mouth as I’m passing in the kitchen as they have been sat on the windowsill gently warming in the sun. Or cooked in a sauce or stew, or perhaps just a dollop of chutney on the side. I love tomatoes, my days would not be happy if I did not have tomatoes in my life. Seriously, if I became allergic to them, well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

I love tomatoes even more than I love peas. And I like peas alot.

When I was very small about four years old, my grandfather had a large vegetable patch in his garden which had a greenhouse. And in this greenhouse my Grandfather grew grapes and cucumbers and tomatoes. His grapevine was very old and gnarled I loved it. But it was the tomatoes that really took my attention. And every time I visited him and Grandma I used to toddle off to the greenhouse, I was only allowed into the greenhouse if I stood still in the middle of it because greenhouses are not really safe for children to play in. So I used to sit on the floor. Always being a child that was safety conscious. And I used to stare at the bright red jewels on the tomato plants and beg my Grandfather for a tomato. He always said “no, the tomatoes are for Grandma.” And it made me sad, because I loved tomatoes. It was a very long hot summer, the sort that goes on forever in childhood and I was often to be found sitting on the floor of the greenhouse staring at the tomatoes, never daring to pick one. I watched the tomatoes ripen and disappear. (I am sure Grandmother gave me tomatoes in salads, I just can’t remember that part of the story) Then one day when all that was left on the plants were just a few leaves that had seen better days and and lots of tiny, tiny red tomatoes no bigger than your thumb nail and many were only as big as your little finger nail, Grandfather said I could pick them and eat them. And I sat on that sandy hot floor in the greenhouse carefully picking these warm and sweet tiny red jewels and popping them in my mouth, they were absolute heaven. I think I was there for at least half an hour before other grandchildren came to find me and they too were overjoyed that Grandfather had said we could have the tomatoes and they helped, although I didn’t really need any help, to strip all of the plants bare.

Good Luck.

Not everyone is on Ravelry, although I have no idea why they wouldn’t be.

I am just having a silly moment so I thought I would share with you some information about a project that I am just starting. I was going to photograph the yarn cake I had made and realised that would give away some of my surprise to the expectant Mum.

Project Info.

Name: Project code named Baby Bear.

Pattern from: Ravelry, after long consideration, many hours and lots of cups of tea.

Craft: Knitting

Made for: Baby Bear.

Size: Baby Bears Size.

Notes
The yarn (I can’t say what obviously) has taken five, yes five hours to wind up. It got into the most dreadful knot which I had to fight my way through but eventually I managed to free it and make it into the most delightful cake.

Pat a cake, pat a cake, bakers man,
bake me a cake as fast as you can,
pat it and prick it and mark it with B
and put it in the oven for Baby Bear and me.

It feels ever so nice to knit for a baby, I’m quite giddy about it all.

Firstly I have been sock knitting, it was quite weird to start with knitting with these cocktail sized needles compared to the 5mm I am using for my Lizard Ridge blanket and it has taken me the best part of a sock to get into my groove. But now that I have I feel much better, it was quite blissful kitchenering (is that a word?) a few moments ago. I really enjoy the rhythmic spell of that particular task.

These socks I started for myself, but as soon as I started to knit them they told me they wanted to belong to hubby. Hubby is still not sure about woolly socks as they can make his feet too hot, but these socks have Insisted that they belong to him and they fit him beautifully, so what is a girl to do. And this yarn seems slightly lighter in weight than his last pair so that may do the trick on his feet overheating.

The photographs are taken at night, but they will give you an idea of what the yarn is like. I think they look like a manly pair of socks, don’t you? Although I do love them and I think I have something similar in my stash for me.

The colours are just divine and the yarn is blissfully soft. This is a skein of hand dyed from Babylonglegs, sock weight, Blue Face Leicester and nylon and is called Apples and Pears.

And,

I have a confession,

for I have sinned….

Its all Alice’s fault.

Alice from Socktopus announced that she had finally sorted out the Fiori di Zucca sock pattern and put it up on her website. Its here if you wish to click. Whilst telling us this on Ravelry she also announced that there were seven skeins of Gelato di Pistacchio in Smooshy, Dream in Colour left. “Seven”, I hear you say, “yes, just seven”.

And this all stems from my knitting pal, who was a part of Alice’s lovely sock club and knitted up Fiori di Zucca not just once, twice.. (which actually drove me to distraction because I couldn’t get hold of this pattern and she’s a lawyer so I couldn’t ask her to copy me one over!!!, ) So when Alice released the pattern I was practically first in the queue by some happy coincidence. Which also meant, I was practically first in the queue for a skein of Gelato di Pistacchio. Was I a happy bunny. I thought the marriage of yarn, colours and pattern was perfect and as someone that often thinks things through far too deeply on whether things will work before casting on, you can imagine just how pleased I am.

Alice included a couple of sachets of Soak, always a nice treat, thank you Alice,

and me, well, I’ll try to be less naughty!

Many people have asked me what I am doing this Easter. Often they talk about holidays to far off destinations or visits to relatives not often seen. As our only surviving parents live locally, Easter does not put so much pressure on us these days. However, the allotment does, although we like it like that, Easter is the time when it is make or break.

We have been lucky this Easter, it was forecast to rain, rain, rain, but we have had a lovely day today, I have fingers crossed for tomorrow. So what have we been doing, well hubby has been planting spuds, lots of spuds, and before he was planting spuds he was planting onions. We may have a surplus of onions this year, its not my fault honest! Well, what happened was, last year we bought one bag of onion sets which were in the size range of 5 to 7 mm, although they were mostly in the larger end of the spectrum. There didn’t seem to be many once we had planted them out, so on that basis I ordered two bags this year. This year they came more into the 5mm range and so we have not only had double the number of last year, you could probably add half again. Hubby has planted ten rows with thirty onions in each row.. That in a perfect world is 300 onions !!! And… I’d ordered some Mammoth red and white onion seed and started them off, I should have about fifty of those too. Its a good job we like onion soup and its also good that I most often cook from scratch, thankfully we tend to use an onion a day.

I struggled to find paper and pen at the allotment, but I did manage to make notes of what is either in the ground or in the greenhouse. We haven’t worked hard, it just comes in spurts, you do need to be able to water regularly though, that is important. I and hubby have sown into the ground and have seen signs of life, parsnips, carrots, beetroot, radish, broad beans, potatoes, fruit trees that are already established, strawberries, garlic, shallots, not forgetting the onions,

When I say we haven’t worked hard, weekends do need to be set aside in March and April, they are the two busiest months of the year. Hubby has had the help of the rotovator and two sturdy boys (otherwise known as son no.1 and son no.2) who really like playing with the rotovator. That really helped this year, last autumn when I was happily engaged in tidying up the plot, we had rainstorm after rainstorm, it was dreadful, many people, not just us had to leave their plots half tidied up for winter.

In the greenhouse we have early purple sprouting, a black Italian cabbage perfect for minestrone’s called Black Tuscany, Peas 🙂 both Onward and Hurst Greenshaft, eight varieties of tomatoes, cauliflowers, lettuces, spring cabbage, leeks, marigolds, pansy, busy lizzie, sweet peas, brunswick and red drummond cabbages, chillies and peppers, chives, dill and mint and spring onions.

I’m sure there are vegetables that I have forgotten or overlooked. As soon as it warms up a little there will be the cucumbers, sweetcorn and various pumpkins to think about, not forgetting the ongoing planting of peas and lettuces.

But until that time, let us start with the photographs of todays visit.

I think this time we will start with a photograph that I often put into the middle of the photographs and I think often gets missed. Here is an unsung hero, hubby, he has kept this plot going for the last 12 months. Look how lovely plot number 1 looks, that really is wonderful for this time of the year.

Next let us cozy up in the greenhouse which is my domain, its often the nicest place to be at this time of the year.

sweet peas in their pots planted in January, their root systems are fantastic, I should have lots of gorgeous flowers this year.

tomatoes falling from replanting, fingers crossed, chitted potatoes just waiting to be planted and various brassicas in the background.

Purple sprouting, just another few days before there is enough to cut for a delicious supper. I am really looking forward to it. Lots of butter and black pepper me thinks.

It might look like brown earth to you, but to me and hubby its rows and rows of planted spuds, and we are very happy to have these in the ground. – hubby has worked very hard on this.

Broad beans,, this is such a quandary for both of us. We both have similar taste buds and we both don’t think we like broad beans, but then we both haven’t had young broad beans freshly picked off the veg plot since we were children. So we are trying them this year.. time will tell.

The shallots are coming up.

and just look at the garlic, isn’t it wonderful?

Yummy tender rhubarb.

and peas, I love peas.

raspberry canes coming to life.

and a picture of blue, well actually I tried to photograph a helicopter, but missed! But it is a nice blue for today and it only lasted a short time before cold and windy clouds came through.

What Easter compilation would be perfect without sheep. Look at those twins aren’t they just a perfect pair.

And this little chap caught my eye, “come in number seventeen” this little chap was tiny and if you look carefully you can still see his umbilical cord, (trust me he was a boy, there are other photographs to identify this) I’m sure he has only been out for a day, he was strong but very hungry.

and this was taken at some distance, but well worth putting in, it looks like a baa lambs play pen, trust me they are free to come and go as they please, very funny and very cute.

I just wanted to wish you all a Happy Easter. Lets hope the weather improves for us allotmenteers today. Hubby has planted half of our spuds the earlies and the first earlies as traditionally potato planting is on Good Friday. He’s hoping to get the other four trays in today, the second earlies and the maincrops, I have an awful lot of pricking out of vegetables to do.

The reason for the very early post its 12.44 a.m. at the moment is just to say that I managed to keep to my promise for Lent and did not cast on anything new. I found it quite an interesting experience. On the one hand it was nice to get ahead on some projects and to finish a couple of projects which then gave me the pleasure of wearing and using them. On the other hand I have been very grumpy in the last few days. The reason, I haven’t had a plain sock to knit. You see when I am feeling grumpy and my level of pain is creeping upwards at the moment, knitting a vanilla sock is very relaxing to me, its almost like taking a soothing painkiller. (not quite but almost) And not having this to hand has just made me even grumpier.

Did I find anything out about myself apart from that I missed sock knitting during lent? I did actually, I found out that my projects always take longer than I think they will to complete. That I do need variety because this eases my muscles as they can get very stiff and painful within a short time doing the same activity but also within this that I can spend too much money. – shocking I know!!! If, I looked hard at my stash of both materials and yarn, I have enough projects to keep me going for a good while yet and I think that is something that I am going to continue to address this year and most probably next year. (although I am going to find books very difficult to give up, and to be honest I don’t think that is ever going to happen) Just as an enabler, have you seen the William Morris In Applique – 6 stunning projects and over 40 individual designs, (Amazon have it in at two prices at the moment, I have no idea why – my book has the same cover as the more expensive version, but the ISBN of the cheaper version, hows that for a puzzle) Its a gorgeous book, absolutely stunning, I bought mine at The Bramble Patch, which is a lovely place to shop, hubby took me out on an afternoon excursion, I spent three hours looking at their Easter exhibition, books, materials and notions, I could have spent longer and I now have all the wear with all to make a beautiful cushion and I’m looking forward to starting that next week. Seriously if you are lucky enough to find this book in your hands you will understand why I have fallen hook, line and sinker for it.

Another lesson was, that when Really Good News is announced, its Very Difficult not to cast on. (you know who you are!!!)

So the plan for today, after a sleep, is two fold, one is to cast on a sock with whatever comes to hand from a lucky dip stash dive, and to knit for a few minutes and the second part of the plan is hubby is carting me up to the plot to sit in the sunshine (I can dream) dressed in several layers of clothing, so that I can prick out the vegetables I’ve been growing whilst he is planting spuds and peas. You never know I might even do a little light hoeing, should the mood take me.