Hello

Hello All!

I seem to have been busy over the last few weeks but I'm not sure what doing. 

 I received a Whatsapp message from my mum this morning saying "Are you quite alright? No blog post lately."  Yes, it's OK, I am quite alright.  We have had problems with our router at home and Mr Clicky has been rebuilding a PC for our neighbours, a which takes up the place in study where I want to sat be typing this.

  

School has gone a bit manic, the children are getting more and more excited and more and more tired as the end of term looms.  I'm going on 3 trips soon and the end of year production of 'Hoodwinked' (Robin Hood) is in full rehearsal.  We rotate the productions though the years and, as it happens, both Miss and Master Clicky have been in it in the past so I'm well practised in the songs.

A few of our evenings have been taken up by watching Master Clicky playing cricket.  He had a break last year as the club got into disarray but thankfully it's back on course and he enjoys it very much.  He is collecting lots of 'trophy injuries', taping fingers together ~ "it's broken Mum," taking off layers of skin on his legs through his whites, and the best yet, a bruise on his knee in the perfect pattern of the stitching on the cricket ball.   

The flowers in the jungle garden are looking great although it seems to grow faster than I can get to it and chop it down.

Anyhoo, this double clematis is climbing up through a tree and we have a lovely view of it from our bedroom.

The Philadelphus (Mock Orange) is stunning at the moment and the smell is wafting into our living room.

Not quite as fragrant but spectacular none the less, is the Stinky Plant as it is know to us.  It's a Dragon Arum, the one that is pollinated by flies.  It smells of rotting fish, only flowers for a few days and then disappears until next year. 

This Peony, not from my garden but in the reduced bucket at the supermarket, makes we want one.  It screams summer at me.

I have been knitting a little, but not much to be honest, my mojo seems to have lost me a bit.  I cast on a new stripy sock mainly to do when there is a football match on ~ seems to be a lot at the moment, anything happening???  It's nice and bright, so should keep me interested.

Right, that's me for now.   Looks like the weather for the weekend will continue to be hot, I'll try to do some gardening. where are those secateurs?

See you soon, have fun...................Clicky Needles.

Celebrations

Hello Folks!

Nice to see you again.

I totally to forgot to tell you last time that it was Miss and Master Clicky's birthdays.  Miss Clicky was 19 and a day later Master Clicky 15.  Miss Clicky went out with her friends and Master C had a quiet day at home.  A week later it was our wedding anniversary, we have been married 20 years. 

My Mum sent us a beautiful hand tied bouquet with roses, carnations, lilies and freesias.  The freesias are a bit of a family tradition, they were in the wedding bouquet of my grandmother, mum and then me.   

A few days later and the lilies opened.  Thanks Mum!  They are giving me lots of pleasure and are the poshest I've ever had!

 As I said in my last post, I've been over to France with our friends to work our house a bit more.  

My sock knitting whilst in the car was coming along well, until I noticed a dropped stitch.  Can you see it?  Purple in the green row.  Hurmph!

 Nothing for it but to rip it out and start again.

 As the miles went by on the roads my sock got bigger and now it's nearly finished.

We had a real mixed bag of weather in France, one day sunburnt, the next soaked to the skin.  The house is looking much better and when we left the plumber was putting in water and waste pipes. 

I bought back the obligatory bottles of wine ~ commented on by a Dutch lady in the supermarket who asked us if we were starting a export business ~ and some yummy locally made Bourgogne cheese.

It's grey and rainy here now, I'm hoping for better weather for the last few days of half term.

See you soon.............Clicky Needles.

Sunshine

Hi There!

Sunshine made the promised appearance last weekend. 

I started the weekend with a bowl of porridge in the garden.  It was lovely and peaceful, just being surrounded with birdsong.  

You remember that Miss Clicky passed her driving test?  She's been hunting for a car and found one in the next county down, Wiltshire.   Our journey took us past Cotswold Airport which had some commercial and RAF planes waiting to be broken up and scrapped.  Cotswold Airport is used because it had a long enough runway for a Jumbo Jet to land.  In years gone by The Red Arrows were stationed here. 

You come around a corner and you are confronted by the bizarre sight of two Jumbos, with various parts missing.  It's kinda sad to see them like this being stripped, but I suppose everything gets reused one way or another. 

Anyhow, a little later, we arrived back home with Miss Clicky's new car.  She loves it very much and is getting used to driving it.

The rest of the weekend I pottered around the garden, pulled a few weeds ~ but if I'm honest not very many, and took the camera out.  Aquilegia, double

and single.

The alliums are stunning.

Perennial Wallflower.

May Blossom on the hawthorn which hangs over our wall.

 Clematis Montana.  Ubiquitous, but lovely all the same.

Two final things, a yummy plate of fresh local asparagus 

 and cherries.

I'll see you next week, I'm popping over to our house in France, with our friends for a long weekend.  As alway there is work to be done, but I'm sure it'll be fun all the same.   I'm not driving, so lots of stripey sock knitting!

See you soon.........Clicky Needles

Yaay! Hall Tiled!

Hello folks!

I can't tell you how pleased I am with our new hall floor.   The carpet that was there was threadbare and dirty.  That was pulled up earlier this year (in an effort to make us do something) and there were (not nice) vinyl tiles underneath.  The hours, aches and sore knees it took to get the vinyl tiles up are now worth it.

Our new floor is making me very happy.  The porcelain tiles were bought last year ~ about October ~ they were piled up in the dining room waiting for something to happen.  At Christmas I chucked a table cloth over them, I didn't want to see them whilst eating Christmas Dinner!  Have I mentioned that I'm pleased?  I'm grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

Another job off the list!  Mr Clicky has been back in the garage putting up more shelves, I think we're on a roll, with a fair wind we might even put up the new outside light!

I also tackled this pile of frogged cardi which I was knitting 5 or so years ago.   I was making this in pink with a green frill.  It didn't go well, the main reason being yarn running out.  I feel out of love with it and frogged it.  The yarn has been hanging around ever since.

I've now rewound it all and at least I'll be able to store it better, without the fear of it all tangling up.

The weather men are predicting scorchio weather this weekend, so if you want me, I'll be in the garden.

Hope you have a great weekend too..............Clicky Needles.

Garage Sorting

Hello Folks.

Before I get going, I was of course, at Wonderwool and not Woolfest last week.  Woolfest is in Cumbria and hasn't happened yet.  I was definitely in Wales ~ thanks to Romain, who was with me for pointing that out.

We spent the Bank Holiday Weekend sorting out our garage.   It is a single garage and I guess like lots of other peoples', in need of a good sort out, reorganise, and chuck away of some of the 'Stuff.'

We bought some BigDug racking, and picked it up form nearby Tewkesbury.

We assembled it first.  It is very easy to put together, the uprights are slotted and the horizontals have a tab which you slot in and tap firmly with a mallet.

We made a workbench and two shelving units.

Then everything came out of the garage.  This is a small proportion of what was in it, there is lots more behind the car, you can't see.

The 'Stuff" was culled and lots taken to the tip, and what we put back in ~ in an orderly fashion ~ is needed and wanted. Mr Clicky used the pine shelves you can see above and put them above 'his' workbench and is planning to add some spot lights too.  He's  also put lots of nails in the walls to hang tools on.  I caught him when we were done, standing admiring his handiwork!  A hard day's work, but well worth it.

At the moment there is a tiler laying tiles in our hallway, so I'll show you them soon.  

Bye for now...............Clicky Needles.

Woolfest oops No! Wonderwool.

Hello Folks!

I had a lovely time at Woolfest Wonderwool, with my lovely knitting pal Romain. 

This year there was another hall open, with more Indie Dyers I think, and the crowds seemed to be better dispersed.

We were greeted by a magnificent dragon.

Wizards and Fairies.

 A wise owl.

And a mum reading a bedtime story to her little one.

We got down to some serious poking around.

A Rainbow at the Easyknits stand.

What it comes from ~ can't remember what these were, sorry!

Two alpacas from Toft.

 A Cotswold Ewe and her lamb.

We stopped for a couple of coffees and lunch and talked knitting, fibre, shape (of garments!) and admired people's lovely hand knits as they passed us.

I accosted a poor lady to talk about a cardi she was wearing that I'm considering making, she was very nice and told me of the mods she would have made.  

Five hours after we arrived we were back on the coach, with cold feet ~ concrete underfoot ~ brrrrrrr.  Nearly back to the car we got stuck behind a low loader with a Sherman Tank!

So, what did I buy?

Three more balls of Drops Delight for more stripy socks.

Two balls of Drops Fabel sock yarn, just because......

A set of Surina wood double pointed needles for the sleeves of my stripy cardi.  (Which I've now used and they are really nice.)

And a beautifully soft, wonderful smelling, hand made leather handbag.

Quite restrained I think.

We had a really great day.

See you soon...................Clicky Needles.

Socks

Hello there!

Our trip to France was good, we got lots of work done, have to look here to see the first instalment.

Master Clicky had a fun week with Gran and Grandad Clicky, they had him helping out around the house, mowing the lawn ~ with the petrol lawnmower obviously much better than a Flymo ~ and visiting local attractions.

I got lots of knitting done whilst travelling through France. 

I made 2 more stripy socks for my collection.

I forgot how I was not making the joins show and as you can see from the blue one, they are noticeable.  This is not bothering me too much though, because after all they're only socks. 

I've not actually worn any of the socks yet, as the winter we have had has been so mild, wooly socks have not been needed.  Instead I have been making wooly stacks of stripeyness.   There is something very pleasing to me about my socks.  You understand.

I'm having a knitty weekend, on Saturday I'm going to my knitting group and on Sunday I'm off to Wonderwool on a coach trip.  I can't believe it has been a year since the last one.

Happily, Miss Clicky, who took her driving test this week passed first time.  She is very pleased with herself and now looking for a car.

That's about me for now, I really should be working on the school website and not chatting to you, so I'll say goodbye.  

See you soon.............Clicky Needles