Toast, letter, and WIP Wednesday.

1) Hot tea, cold apple juice, and toast, multi-grained, buttered while still hot from the toaster, for breakfast. Sometimes the simple things are the best 🙂 .

2) M is so excited to receive a letter addressed just to her!

3) I haven’t had much time to knit this week, but I have managed a few rows (mostly while sitting of an evening in a tent!) of Autumn Project #1 – the stripey Oddments Knitting Bag:

Autumn Project #1 Oddments Knitting Bag

To see more of today’s Works-in-Progress, head on over to Tami’s blog

Breakfast, walk, and view.

1) Porridge, maple syrup, and strawberries – a good hearty breakfast to start the day.

2) The promised freezing weather doesn’t materialise, and we have a beautiful drive along the south coast, and a lovely walk in the New Forest, enjoying the spring sunshine.

3) The view from a golden beach across the sparkling blue harbour, to the dramatic cliffs on the Isle of Wight.

Mother’s Day

1) I was awoken by Aidan and Megan bringing me breakfast in bed (cinnamon toast, made by themselves), and presenting me with beautiful homemade cards.

2) Lunch was Aidan’s homemade “patchwork bread” (a tear and share style bread, consisting of various combinations of white, wholemeal, seeded, or chocolate breads). Megan had made a batch of delicious cupcakes, iced and beautifully decorated.

3) We had a lovely afternoon walk at Beecraigs with Grandma, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner cooked by my Dad, and assisted by K and M. The sun shone, and I couldn’t have asked for a more lovely way to spend this Mother’s Day :-).

Brunch, tree, and decorations

From Sunday:

1) We’d stayed overnight with one of K’s colleagues after the party last night. His wife makes us brunch of crepes, freshly sliced bananas and maple syrup – yum!

2) Our plan for the afternoon included buying our Christmas tree – we discover that they are giving away the trees (for a donation) that were used at the church Christmas Tree festival. There was one which was just perfect for us, so we take it home 🙂 .

3) Putting up our Christmas decorations (never quite as unstressful as we imagine, but good fun nevertheless):

Sunday morning brunch, walking is fun and happy memories.

1) We four go out mid-morning, wend our way to Cafe Ruby, whereupon we eat brunch.

2) A&M do spend the first ten minutes of our walk whining this afternoon. Then they settle down and start to really enjoy themselves – running ahead, finding walking sticks, exploring paths through the bracken and seeing what they can spot.

3) I’m still smiling at happy thoughts from my big surprise yesterday. And looking forward to meeting up with our friends again in a couple of days time!

Eggs, bread and bedtime cuddles

1) Fresh eggs, perfectly boiled, served with fresh wholemeal bread which was toasted and cut into soldiers.

2) K and M go shopping to buy some bread for lunch. They return with honey and oat bread – the first we’ve seen since New Zealand. It was as delicious as I remembered it to be.

3) In a rare moment of stillness, A climbs onto my knee at bedtime for a cuddle.

Brioche, present and cuddles

1) Eggy French brioche for breakfast – a special treat because, well, what else do you do with brioche which is beginning to go stale?

2) The kids arrive back from Grandma’s with a beautiful fuchsia for me, which just happened to fit perfectly into a pot I’d just emptied a few days ago.

3) We get the kids into bed but they’re too excited to settle quickly, so we stay quietly in our room as our presence upstairs helps them to calm down. While we wait we share a cuddle 🙂 .

Soda bread, waking up, and knitting

1) We breakfasted on delicious Irish Soda bread this morning – yum. A delicious way to start the day!

2) She curls sleepily on my lap, gradually awakening from an afternoon nap. Ten minutes later, she’s off, all excited with sparkling eyes to a birthday party.

3) I spend a lazy hour knitting – the back is complete, and the complicated cast-on and increases of the front are done.