The Spring Ball and London Marathon

I've been a bit busy socially recently which is why I haven't been blogging....tut tut tut, but I have been working on finishing my Rascal's cardigan. Honest. Well, it started last Friday when I went wine tasting with Gracie at Vinolopolis. I do like my wine/champagne/Cocktail now again, but I do drink sensibily. Heeheehee! According to Grace, I was talking to my cocktail and I remember almost spillling it down myself. Anyway, I'm sure she will tell you a lot more funny antics that I was up to that day. Heeheehee. I highly recomend a visit to Vinopolis when in London.

After having a jolly time wine tasting, we had our company's spring ball the next day at the Dorcester. Nice champange they have...and according to Jackson I slept like a pig afterwards. Heehee. Here is a photo of the both of us on that night.

We watched the Marthon with a hangover on Sunday which passes our road, I managed to take afew few photos. Wasn't it a lovely day? Probably a bit too hot for the runners though. I really admire all the runners, I'm not very good at running, always the last few at the School's cross counting running. Hee! Hee!

The finishing of my Rascal cardigan is coming on slowly. I've finished the collar now, so all I need to do are:

- Knit the two sides

- Sewing up

Hopefully, I'll finish it before her birthday next month.

Colours and First Blogversary

Oh goodness...I've been blogging for just over one year. This blog was started so that I could comments on other blogs instead of lurking around, also to improve my knitting, sewing and photography skills. I have to say that my knitting and sewing have been coming on slowly, but I felt that my photography skill need more improvement. So on my trip to Norwich and I decided to take some colourful photos inspired by Janet Brocket, whose blog have so many lovely photos full of colour (without using Photoshop). I've asked my husband to get me photoshop, but he's been ignoring me, so will have to wait till he has some time to install it for me.

These photos were taken at the French Market at Norwich:

Ripe tomatoes

Artichoke

Strawberries

Liquisious - forgotton how to spell this

I've noticed that other blogs have giveaways for their blogversay, so I will sort something out.

Easter Break

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter Break!!

We had a very busy Easter over here. I had written notes of all my plans for Easter, including Easter Egg Hunt with clues and handmade hot cross buns and chocolates. However, there was a change of plan. Instead of clues we had a one where all the kids ran wild around the flat looking for their eggs. The hot cross buns and chocolate will have to wait until later....as my Mum would say......'you don't have to wait till Easter to eat hot cross buns and chocolate'. Hee! Hee! I will try and make some later.

The reason for the last minute change of plans is that Jaxs wanted to take the Rascal and her friends to the V&A Museum to made Easter Egg bonnets. I have never been to the V&A Museum and there is just so much to see. I didn't get a chance to see the hat exhibitions, so I'm planning another trip there in the near future.

Also Jaxs and his best mate planned a trip to Norwich over the long weekend so we all went including my Rascal and De (Jax best mate's wife). We stopped over at Colechester where we visited Colechester Castle and its Park.

Our hotel was right next to Norwich football pitch (yep my Jaxs is a football fan) and very close to Delia Smith's restaurant which had table for that the weekend!!! But we didn't go in the end....again, I must make another trip up there just for Delia.

The next day we went to Great Yarnmouth, the weather forecast mentioned rain at 1pm....so we were prepared to get out brollies out...but it didn't rain. Hooray!! It was a lovely sunny day where Rascal and I collected pebbles and drew pictures in the sand.

The last day was spent in Norwich town centre and a lovely town called Lavenham.

Jarrolds in Norwich Town Centre

The Wonky Art Center in Laverham. We went to a lovely 4 star pub/hotel were we ate cream teas, which was lovely and the shops there were so pretty. Yep.....I need another trip there.

I'm hoping to get some time to do some crafting later on this month and finish the Rascal never ending cardigan. Fingers crossed.

Principles

Last week, everyone who worked in the City were expecting major disruption on Wednesday and Thursday during the G20 Summit. At work we were told to dress down or work at home by the Senior Partner, but a few of us (including me) decided to go to work as usual and wear our normal work clothes. The protesters have a right to put their message (I agree that the banks have been too greedy and are partly responsible for the mess we have at the moment) across peacefully which most of them did, so we have to the right to go to work and not be attacked. They should be sensible enough not to attack innocent people trying to go to work to make a living who are all hoping that they will not be made redundant. My husband told me not to wear a suit but my stubborn side took over and I decided to stand up for my principles.

In fact I had a easy commute all last week, I even got a seat on the tube! A nutter (not a protester) gave me a bit of trouble on my way to work on Thursday, but a police was present later on and then for the rest of the week. At work all we could hear were police car sirens, helicopters hovering around and there was a dummy horse on Old Street. I realised the chaos on Wednesday evening on the news but still wore my normal work clothes the next day which turn out to be relatively quiet in the City.

[Bank of England on Thursday...relatively quite. The protesters only used chalk to write on the wall]

Anyway, enough politics for now. I'm on my Easter break, one week off work...hurray!! I'm going to stay at home and get some sleep. Hee hee hee! Partly true, I'm planning on spending some time with my family and friends.

Check out this Scandinavian website, lovely Swedish handicraft. I found this website at the Ideal Home Exhibition where they had a they had a Stand. I love the hand knitted Shaw.

Have a nice Easter Break everyone!

Ideal

I had an interesting week just gone. I baked some cakes for charity and ate lots of them too, including a coffee cake and walnut loaf that my colleague made. I've started taking dance exercise class to burn of all the calories from those cakes and chocolates. Gyms don't agree with me, I just get bored and give up, but dance is fun (and we have a sexy male instructor....hee heeee).

Jaxs and I went to the Ideal Home Exhibition on Saturday. I met Jaxs at Earl Court almost 15 years ago and then kept in touch at Uni. Gosh, I can't believe I've been with him for so long.......Hee Hee Hee......Jaxs is OK.....we've had our moments, but we're still going to Earls Court together...Hee Hee Hee! Also he's been very sweet buying Let's Knit Magazine for me while the checkout guy and the couple behind him laugh.

The Ideal Home was fun and interesting, there is a lot of focus on home improvement and making the most of what you have got than buying and renovating. Jaxs was surprised by the amount of focus on textiles and now understands my obsession with fabric and yarn. Here are few photos of what we saw:

A beautiful beach hut decorated in light blue and cream, my favourite colours.

A wooden boat...yes...I'm thinking of the sea now.

Pretty French Macaroons from a Laduree stall.

On our way home, I couldn't resist taking a photo of this Ikea poster, there were more of them at Earls Court Station. Funny eh...

Sunny Mothers' Day and the Stitch and Craft Show

I had a really bad time last week (London Transport related as usual and will blog about this later) so this weekend I decided to really treat myself.

On Saturday I went to the Stitch and Craft Show at London Olympia. There were more people than last year, I guess lots of daughters (and/or sons) decided to treat their mothers this weekend. Before I went I had a chat with Gracie who told me to not to buy anymore yarn, which is good advice as I'm running out of space in my small flat. I said I wouldn't buy yarn but I didn't say I wouldn't buy fabric...Heeheeheeee! The first stand that caught my eye was Fabric Galore. Two Hippos is so right, it is such a great shop (in Battersea). The lady at the stall said that what she had on that day is just a fraction of what she has at the shop. I must make a visit there when I get the chance. Anyway, this is what I bought:

When I miraculously find time to do some sewing, I'm hoping to make a skirt with the green Liberty fabric and a bag with the leafy fabric. Two more weeks to my Easter Holiday, when I hopefully get more sleep and time to spend with my Rascal...and do some sewing or knitting.

I also had a good day today...the sun was shining, the birds were singing and Rascal and I skipping by the docks (yes....this is not a joke...we really were doing that....that's what people do around here when the sun is shining ....Gracie knows all about that).

I received a lovely daffodil (in a mini Evian bottle) and a card from my daughter. We decided to have strawberry muffins for breakfast and tea (from a teabag given to me as a Mothers' Day present.

We spent the rest of the day around the Docklands and then to the Childhood Museum.

I hope everyone had a great Mothers Day!

Cables and more Painting

I have been avoiding cables since I started knitting. A lot of my knitting friends have said that it is very easy, but for some reason it just looks too fussy to me. Anyway, the other day Jackson's Aunt knitted my rascal a beautiful cardigan with lots of cables (will post a photo when I'm at home during the day instead of being at work). Also, after reading Kyoko's blog which have lots of pretty patterns involving lots of cables, I simply had to overcome my fear. So last week I ask my Mother in Law to show me how to knit cables, and it clicked! I can do proper cables and read knitting instructions with them now. Here is a small swatch of our practicing session. Not bad eh...

This weekend, I took the rascal to Greenwich to Biscuit the pottery cafe to do more painting. She painted pretty plate which should be ready for us to collect next week.

Jax is not very keen on kids painting, playing with Plasticine and play dough. To be honest I don't think my parents where either as I don't remember don't any of those things when I was a child. However, my Rascal enjoys all of these things so I have some play dough, Plasticine and paints in our flat so she can be creative and enjoy painting and making things. I've also bought two compact water paints as well so we can both do some painting over Easter. Hee! Hee! Hee!