Sew Sunday ...

I'm enjoying a lot of peace and quiet at the moment, perhaps rather more peace and quiet than I'm totally comfortable with. By some strange alignment of the stars Mr B and the child are both away: Mr B is the Far East with work, and Emi is in Wales on a geography trip. So it's just me and the WonderDog holding the fort.

I enjoyed it enormously for the first day or two. Whaow! I got so much done ... but now I'm finding excuses to go and visit people. I've had enough of my own company.

On Sunday we had a glorious day here in London: all blue skies and sunshine. I devoted my afternoon to sewing peacefully on the terrace.

Iced T

I've come over all summery: my drink of choice in these balmy days of early summer is iced tea. I'm normally a builder's brew type of girl, who occasionally pushes the boat out with an exotic cardamon tea from the Turkish grocery shop. But these days I'm brewing tisanes to chill in the fridge and serve over ice in tall glasses.

A big "thank you" ...

... to the lovely guests who came for our May Spring Colours holiday. Come rain or come shine, you were terrific!

Hey Duckie ...

I've been meaning to write up the pattern for this little guy for a-g-e-s, and with one thing and another I have procrastinated so that he's remained an undocumented doodle in my notebook.

Anyway, here he sharing his spring-time glory with the buttercups.

If you'd like to make him, just read on for the pattern.

Horse Chestnuts in May

Right now I am in thrall to the horse chestnut trees. All across West London they are in bloom, and the air is heavy with their scent. They are life-affirmingly gorgeous - unless of course you suffer from hay fever, in which case you'd probably vote to have them all chopped down overnight.