What a Beautiful Day, and About Time, Too......

I love this time of year. All the spring flowers are coming into bloom and it's warm enough to spend whole days and evenings outside. The winter is lovely in its cosy, wintry way and we always look forward to lighting a fire in our log burner in the sitting room, but I've had enough by the time it gets to January, and February and March can really try my patience. It's not just being able to be outside more often without feeling like an old croc, having to scuttle here and there before my bones disintegrate from the cold - everything seems so much more beautiful....life seems so much more beautiful. I feel more relaxed and life is good. The above photo is of our largest apple tree in bloom (we only have three, not a whole orchard!). This apple tree is way taller than our house and yields about one million apples that seem to be inedible, but I can see it just about 30 feet away from the window on our upstairs landing and I love it. It's surprising how many people have suggested that we cut it down so that we can "get more sun". But why would I want more sun? I have plenty of sun in other parts of the garden. I only ever sit under a parasol anyway. How could anyone suggest cutting this very old, old tree down? Now I'm ranting, so look at this photo of our lovely robin, who lives in our garden all year round. Isn't he lovely? Luckily our cat hasn't got him yet (he prefers mice).

But today, although the temptation to stay in the garden and listen to the wood pigeons and peacocks (next door) and all the other birdsong, was very strong indeed, we ventured out to Gulliver's World, a plastic-fantastic theme park for children. Friends of ours had free tickets and invited us along for their son's birthday. We had reservations about going to such a place, as generally we prefer to take Charles somewhere more like this:

Ivinghoe Beacon

Or this, at Climping, on the south coast (me looking quite chubby last year.....):


Or this (Tring Canal Festival):

So, you're probably feeling sorry for Charlie Townes right now, but don't - because he has a fantastic time and so do we! Disney World/Land/Whatever is our idea of something horrible, so we entered Gulliver's World with trepidation. All I can say is, Charlie enjoyed himself but in a manufactured kind of way, and in spite of the dust and concrete and plastic and the "you are here to enjoy yourself" mentality (and in spite of the two nasty grazes to his forehead, from a meeting with some concrete). It wasn't that bad, but there were as many tears as there were smiles and we'd all had enough by the time we left. But we couldn't leave before I'd done this:

Don't worry, I'm not really that much of an exhibitionist - no one else was looking!

And now for a tiny piece of knitting stuff - this:

Since photographing this sock this evening, I've now finished it (knitting whilst waiting for images to upload on my ancient computer) but haven't tried it on yet.

No progress on the Fyberspates jumper at all, or anything else, for that matter. However, since seeing the beautiful quilt on Yarnstorm (love, love, love that blog), I've been thinking about quilting (ssshhhhhhhh) and have ordered two books on the subject. The quilting really appeals to me as I've always loved textiles and was quite taken with them in my twenties when I was supposed be studying interior design (but that's another story). Still loving the knitting, though. Once the socks are finished, which should be tomorrow, I might start a Louisa Harding pullover (might)......