Spring is here

Happy April! Can you believe we are a quarter of the way through this year already ??!! We've had a real mixed bag of weather here, but a couple of weeks ago when it as really warm and sunny, I had a lovely walk with Mr EC and the dog, starting in the beautiful village of Waltham St Lawrrence. (Mr EC is pulling a silly face as his friends always say he looks miserable in selfies on a walk with me, so he was detremined to prove them wrong! He doesn't normally grin like a maniac, I promise!)

The sun shone, it was lovely and warm, and there was such a gorgeous blue sky.

It was one of those walks that you wouldn't know was there, unless someone told you - luckily I'd done this walk a few weeks before with a friend who knew of it ... her friend had told her .. and so on ...

Anyway we set off down this random path next to some allotments ....

Which gave out onto large open fields ...

Through gates and over stiles - we had to lift the dog over !

Some wonderful dens had been built in the woods ...

Eventually we came to this little archway ...

... which took us through the grounds of St John's church ...

... and opened out onto the sweeping open fields of the Shottesbrooke Park estate ...

 ... the little lake was shimmering in the sun ...

... we kept going until we came out near White Waltham, with its war memorial ...

We turned left at the monument  and followed the road along, which eventually brought us next to White Waltham airfield. Its a working airfield, and we saw some little planes take off but they were too far away to get any photos. Eventually we turned left again at this little church that had been converted into a house - so cute!

Bravely we ventured through the fields of sheep ...

... we even got quite close ...

... but we left them to graze, as we continued on down tree-lined paths ...

... we also met some horses clip-clopping their way through the fields ...

... the path led us back past the Shottesbrooke Tudor mansion ...

... and eventually we came back to St John's church... 

... and the pathway back to the allotments

It was such a beautiful spring morning, just warm enough to not need a coat or jumper, oh how I love it when the weather starts to get warmer. I'm definitely a spring-summer kind of girl, and much as winter can be pretty and cosy, I much prefer the longer days and warmer temperatures.

Since that walk the weather has been so changeable - on Thursday it tried its very best to snow, with a few big flurries throughout the day. All the better, then, to stay in and crochet!

Or knit! My knitted sock is progressing nicely and does actually resemble a sock now. I'm ridiculously proud of it , but am now faced with the task of doing (turning ?) the heel, so I need to psych myself up for that over the next few days.

Yesterday and today I made some red, white and blue bunting for a secret project! I've used Stylecraft Special DK in Matador, White and Midnight, and I have the remainder of the balls to use up so there is much more bunting to come.

My lace scarf is growing nicely. In the photo it looks like I haven't really done very much, but its worked along the full length for each row - about 5 ft long - so each row takes aaages to do. Not helped by the fact that last night I had to rip back 2 entire rows when i found a mistake aarrrghhhh. 

I'm almost onto the second skein of yarn, so I had to get the swift and wool-winder out again to wind it into a lovely squishy cake.

A couple of weeks ago a friend contacted me to ask if I could mend a blanket that her late Mum had knitted, and which was of enormous sentimental value to her. I was a bit worried that mending it would require serious knitting skills but actually it just needed some squares re-joining together in several places. Here's a before and after of the type of thing I mean:

I know the colours in those photos are different but I promise its the same blanket (and the top photo is the truer colour by the way).

And here's a photo of the blanket in all its glory - isn't it fabulous !

Well that's it from me for this time. I'll have lots of lovely yarny things to share with you next week, so until next time,

Jillxxxx