This is the moment I’ve been waiting for… thanks to the heavy rain yesterday, the raspberries came to life and ripened overnight…
We picked 2 kgs of raspberries and smaller amounts of red currants, loganberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries…
Last night I made my first batch of jams- ten jars in all! Just made some fresh scones so off to scoff a jar or two!!!
I’ve found the past few months pretty overwhelming- I had way too much to do, and no time to do it… but now at last, thankfully, things are starting to slow down… and I’m ploughing through my “to-do” list with relief. Orders are being made for new books, puppets and wooden toys; I’m working on a whole new series of personalised illustrative paintings, prints and stationery- more, and photos on that later in the week!- and I’ve started other mixed media paintings- ones I’ve been gathering materials, ideas and drawings for, for weeks and months.
I’ve also sorted out where we will start our crochet get-togethers – Andrea of Lush stuff and Dream Interiors very kindly has offered her beautiful shop space in Ballinasloe- so we now just to get in a few hooke – (ooops, was just about to say hookers- mightn’t be quite the terminology I was looking for) crochet-minded individuals (on that note: Clare, if you are reading this, will you get in touch with me, my phone has wiped out my entire contact list… 
) and we are away. Hopefully we will have our “Crochet Appreciation Society” up and running in the next few weeks!
And just to leave you with an image that makes me weep…. with delight..!
All from the polytunnel over the weekend… yay!
{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Inspired by Soulemama~ do pop over and savour her delicious blog!
Where do I start? Well, I got up that little bit extra early today and trotted out to the polytunnel to get the handful (literally) of ripe fruit there (raspberries and strawberries) before my delightful little monsters children cleared the branches. So, with my 120gms of fruit, I cooked them up with 120gms of sugar while I made a few scones and whipped up some vanilla sugar in the cream.
Beloved and I had our scones in a rather boring fashion- jam with cream on top; Wee One just dispensed with the scone altogether and just ate the jam and cream (definitely my daughter)
(Mother, and all those doubters out there, this photo is pictorial evidence that we are actually out of bed before 11am)
So, with brekkie out of the way, and the menu for the day planned, I finished off the sewing I needed to do. (Didn’t want to disappoint anyone and be actually organised)
And here it is!
The hand-stitched, thrifted, recycled, crocheted bag!
I used a cream vintage, Irish wool blanket that I bought for a song in a charity shop, felted it in the washing mashine, hand stitched with a running stitch in orange, then top stitched in cream. The crochet granny squares were stitched to the front; I covered a button in the wool felt ( that was the HARDEST bit!!) and made a little crochet loop.
I’m thoroughly delighted with it, and am in the middle of making a tutorial, I’ll hopefull post it tomorrow or Sunday.
Thanks Andrea for hosting such a great “Lush Friday” event! Pop over to her blog: Lush Stuff to see all the other great makes!
Pebbles has been looking increasingly matted over the past few weeks, so at last we found a dog groomer and brought her in for a bit of a haircut.
She went from this:
To this:
Worried that she might be cold with the sudden departure of her wool coat, Fergal made her a Jedi cloak out of some old furry fabric.
Our Star Wars-mad boys are most impressed.
The evening of the 23rd of June is the Vigil of John the Baptist, and the tradition around here in East Galway is to light a bonfire on this night (they love bonfires around here, and have one burning for any excuse!! Another really lovely tradition is to light little fires outside your gate when someone gets married- you can always tell when there has been a wedding as there are little (tended) fires burning for miles along the roadside for when the couple drives past).
So last night we were invited over to my friend Bernadette’s home-place to celebrate with them. Never ones to miss a party, we went over for a great evening under a pergola, (complete with bunting!!)
for delicious food, wonderful chat, songs and memories from long ago. The children ran around the field for hours, then retired to Granny Beedie and Grandad Tom’s (we’ve kind of adopted them) where they played card games and ate Granny Beedies stash of “Snack” bars until the early hours of the morning!!
A sneak peek of what I’m making for the “Show & Tell Friday” that my friend Andrea from Lush Stuff is hosting tomorrow- pop over to her gorgeous blog and join me in being green with envy at her considerable sewing talent, and join us tomorrow, here for my hand-stitched, thrifted, recycled, crocheted creation (sounds….. interesting… hee hee), and there (at Lush Stuff) to see what everyone is up to… sure to be a great party!
(vintage French tablecloth I bought in Romans last year, lovely, isn’t it?)
Hope your Solstice was, and continues to be, full of roses!
(This photo has nothing to do with the post or high Nellys- just a bit of eye-candy)
When I was thirteen, my friend Emma moved only a couple of miles away, which was fantastic for two teenagers who wanted to talk 24 hours a day, and who could now hop on a bicycle and cycle the short distance to see each other whenever the need arose…
Unfortunately, I did not own a bicycle and was borrowing my brothers, which inevitably meant we always wanted it at the same time! My parents had started a business and I knew there was no money for bicycles and the like… But one morning my (lovely) mother woke me up (very) early (we tended to stumble out of bed ten minutes before falling into the car to go to school, for which we were always late) and brought me downstairs to show me the bike she had prevailed upon from a friend of hers- it was an old green Raleigh girls bike. Let me tell you I could not have been more excited and delighted if it had been brand new and diamond encrusted!! It is one of my happiest memories…
And years later, this (also lovely) chap found a High Nelly outside the sculpture department in college. He brought it home, fixed it up and bought me a little basket for the front.
I later married him (the chap, not the bike) and to this day it is the bike I use for whizzing down the boreen (when I don’t have a little one on the back, needless to say)
or on family cycles, when everyone cycles ahead, such is my propensity to cycle into them or clumps of thistles or any large hole at the side, or indeed the middle, of the track.
Isn’t it lovely?
Even though it’s rusty
And the dog ate half the basket
and the chain is held up with baler twine
Truly, a much loved vintage treasure that should last another few decades!
Ahhh, my lovely High Nelly….
