Slipping into bad habits ....

... once more.

Having joined up to this round of Secret Pal, I'd had the intention to keep up with blogging.
But for the first time in a year I've succumbed to my usual virus, despite not having the time to feel unwell.
Good news - voice loss 1.5 days
Bad news - earache 8 days now

Best news - we are not open on Monday, so I get a weekend despite working tomorrow.

Knitting news - I have just finished another pair of socks in a mix of yarns.
Half Regia cotton/half some unlabelled sock wool - pics to follow.
Latest pair started in bamboo/wool - one row of each.

Secret Pal goodies again

When I can I spend a lot of time in the garden. This weekend, amazingly, my one day at home coincided with good weather. All week we had showers of rain, often heavy. Leaving work on Saturday afternoon I got drenched cycling home, so wasn't expecting such luck on Sunday.

But before I get too involved in talking about planting out items, here are the goodies from the first part of SP14: butterflies for the garden, beautifully dyed silk hankies and the handcream to smooth my digits before embarking on the spinning. Thank you, Secret Pal. When I get a couple of other spinning projects out of the way, I will spend some time removing all those gardening roughnesses with salt and oil, as I know that sik hankies are best treated with care. I already tried out the handcream, and it is just right to use before spinning silk and fine wool.And now for the creative bit in the garden. A while ago I found some old carrot seed and planted it in modules in the greenhouse. I have been rather lazy about keeping it watered and yet it survived. For about a week it has needed to be moved on. We never seem to get on well with carrots as our soil is full of gravel from the River Trent in whose floodplain we live. These carrots having survived my general neglect have now had lots of care lavished on them. I found some mature compost and assiduously sieved out all the stones and bits of branches. This has then had more compost and sand mixed in with it, and been put in a growing bag that held early potatoes until last month. Tonight they have perked up, so we may yet get a decent crop.
As you can see, the butterflies felt right at home on our patio. This pot has just developed by serendipity. Originally it held some golden hops and nasturtiums. Several years on it has self-seeded plants some of which I cannot yet identify. But as they all work well together it hasn't been disturbed. We frequently find plants creeping in, possibly brought in by birds. Only the fern in this pot has its parentage in our garden. We are still waiting to see what the other shrubs turn out to be.