Stitching for stress-relief ...

Gosh it's been a strange old week. Emi has been away on his school trip to Picardy, leaving me with a lot of time on my hands to get on with other things. Mr B had got quite excited about the idea of a child-free spell when we could wine and dine and carry-on like people with no great amount of responsibility to tie them down. But then his surgeon telephoned to tell him that the clinic could take him in for his knee op yesterday - bang in the middle of our hedonistic plans. He ummed and ahed a bit, and wondered whether they could possibly do it on Friday instead (the child is due back tomorrow evening). But common sense caught up with him and he duly went under the knife yesterday afternoon.

And, happily, it looks like the surgery was a great success.

In the meantime I've spent a lot of time hanging around waiting for the next thing to happen: trying to jolly him along as he anxiously waited for his slot in theatre, sitting quietly with him whilst he slept off the after-affects of the anaesthetic, keeping him company when he had to over-night in the clinic and didn't have anyone else to talk to. And, as is my way, I brought along some cross-stitch to help with the stress of worrying and the boredom of waiting. In situations like this, when I can't concentrate on anything too involved, I find that the simple, colour-guided process of cross-stitch is hugely helpful. *Breathe and stitch. Stitch again. Take another breath*. Repeat from * to * for as long as the agony lasts. I can just about cope with hospitals, and waiting for a loved one in surgery downstairs, if I remember to breathe and stitch ...

So after all that angst, this is where I've got to:

All the best for now,

Bonny x

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Just chilling in sunny Sant Feliu ...

This past couple of days I've been chilling, enjoying the (unusual for me) sensation of having nothing much to do. All my deadlines have passed. All my work is done - for now, and it's been a real treat to head out on my bike, to enjoy the wind in my hair and the open road rising up before me.

Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Costa Brava

Of course I've had the WonderDog strung over my handlebars. There's no leaving him behind. Mr B recently bought me an amazing handbag contraption that allows him to sit on the front of my bike. I was a bit worried about how him freaking out, but he's taken to our new mode of transport with real aplomb. Anything is better than being left behind, and in this hot weather I think he enjoys the sensation of the wind in his fur as we bomb along.

Max the WonderDog

My bike is an ancient bone-shaker, and I'm usually the one bringing up the rear of the cycle party, but that's just fine with the WonderDog who doesn't like going too fast over the bumpy bits. I'm not going to win the yellow jersey if the Tour de France veers south, but I can say, hand on heart, that I really couldn't care less about winning the speed trials. I'm just there for the fun of it.

Bonny & Max

Young Emi is busy with sailing, windsurfing and tennis, so I've got loads of time to wander around and take random photos of things that catch my eye.  And, as is always the case in this beautiful part of God's good earth, there are lots of things catching my eye - like this amazing cactus flower:

The perfect orange of a cactus flower, Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Costa Brava

I'm not mad about cactuses ... until they flower. And then their flowers never fail to delight.

Or how about this weirdly monochromatic butterfly? He's probably a moth.

Hanging out with the wildlife, Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Costa Brava

Although this chap below is the real deal. There were dozens of these little guys enjoying the wild sedum flowers growing on the sea cliffs as we chuffed past.

Hanging out with the wildlife, Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Costa Brava

And the contorted shapes of the Costa Brava pine trees are always guaranteed to catch my eye. 

Cami de Ronda, Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Costa Brava

And then there's our sensational village beach, where windsurfers and sailors swish past, and old men meet on the benches to gossip and play petanca in the shade of the plane trees.

The village beach, Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Costa Brava

The herring gulls are everywhere, and they never seem to stop chattering to one another. There's a constant barrage of noise from them. We've got a mother and chick team nesting in our garden, who take great exception to anyone trying to use their swimming pool. They dive bomb us every time we venture out, and we are all in terror of their vicious beaks.

Herring gull, Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Costa Brava

Anyway that's it for me for now. Wishing you all a fabulous weekend.

Bonny x

A big "thank you" to all my lovely May guests ...

... it was an absolute pleasure hosting you in Girona and in my home village, Sant Feliu de Guíxols.

!Hasta la vista!

Bonny x

Doodles in tapestry wool ...

It's exam season ... <groan!> 😩 And, if there's one thing worse than having to go off and sit a whole bunch of exams yourself, it's going through the ritual of exam season second-time-round with your kids. We've had a busy old time of it recently catching up on spellings and grammar, arithmetic and mathematical reasoning for Emi's SATS exams, and now he's headed for his end of year exams in all the other subjects.

To keep hold of my sanity when my interest in spotting adverbial clauses was waning, I dug out the little bit of tapestry wool left over from my last project. And sitting there in the quiet as Emi studied, I thought about a beautiful clematis, deep purple blossoms and waxy green leaves, coiling its way up a bamboo support.

My inspiration came from a recent gardening triumph of my mother's. Now I have to explain that my mum is the most green-fingered person I know. She has a really special gift for getting things to grow from cuttings and seed that she handbags on her travels. And, yes, that really is a verb! Over the course of my lifetime she's carried home most of her large, colourful garden in her handbag.

 She recently blew my socks off by growing the most exquisite clematis from a cutting that she took from my uncle's garden. Last time she showed it to me it was gorgeous: all healthy green leaves and swollen buds breaking out into showers of impossibly-exotic purple blossoms. I was deeply envious.

And so, sitting there in the kitchen with my son and a stack of SATS papers, I found myself day-dreaming about glamorous purple clematis vines. My left-over threads didn't run to the exact colour scheme that nature had created; I didn't have nearly enough deep purple, but I improvised and this is what came out: