Relaxing

Hello Folks.

Firstly, thank you for your lovely comments about the wedding blanket, my teacher (the bride) loved it too.  So did her fiance and she sent me photo of him wrapped up in it, sleeping!  

I am having a lovely relaxing time here in Chicago.  Mr Clicky leaves for work early so I lie around in bed for a bit, and then have breakfast on the little balcony of our apartment.

The pool doesn't open until 10am so there's no rush,  when I get there I have it virtually to myself because most of the residents are at work.  I have been reading, crocheting, listening to podcasts and a bit of dozing too.  When Mr Clicky gets home he comes down to join me for a bit.  He worries that I am bored on my own.  I am most definitely not, rather getting properly relaxed with no responsibilities whatsoever.

We have been out and about too.  We popped out to our local Movie Theater to see Mamma Mia.  It had fully reclining seats, something I've not come across before.  Other movie goers were carrying blankets, I soon discovered why, it was quite chilly with the air conditioning.  The film itself was ok, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first one.

We have also visited the Chicago Botanic Garden. It is 385 acres of parkland and separate garden areas and greenhouses to explore all set around lakes.  As it was 36 degrees Celsius (97 Fahrenheit) we found the shade from the trees as we walked around.

There were lots of water features in various gardens.

The lake around the Japanese island.


There were several greenhouses with some fierce looking cactus.

I'm not sure the banana needed to be in the greenhouse it was so hot.

The plant was huge.  The bananas on the top looking like they needed a bit more time to ripen fully.

We both liked the white garden it had some ideas I might use at home. 

This hibiscus was spectacular, the flowers are the size of plates.


We spent three hours here and it could have been longer.

On the way back home we popped into Ikea.  Never a good idea on a Saturday whichever country you are in, but we gritted our teeth, fought the crowds and made our purchases.

Mr Clicky has been using this box as a table, I had got rid of similar 'tables' when I visited at Easter but this one had snuck back in.

We picked up a Kallax unit, doesn't that look better?

Remember the hibiscus?  We liked it so much that when we found one similar in a local nursery we bought it.  I put it in a pot with a beautiful purple flowered pennisetum and thyme in a rather eclectic mix.  The pennisetum is lovely and soft and the thyme gives off lovely scent.  It is sitting on the balcony and I can't resist running my fingers through the seed heads.

Well, that's me for now, I have a crochet project on the go which I am very excited about so more about that next time.

Have a good week.................Clicky Needles.