Hot Hot Hot...

This week in the U.K it has been hot, damn hot!

I love summer, and warm sunny days, but this has been too much! Maybe i'm being a woosy Brit or maybe this country isn't set up for these conditions, as we get them so rarely. But it's been hard to move, function or sleep! 

Needless to say that not much crochet has taken place!

Its only the last couple of days, that the temperature has dipped slightly to allow me to pick up my hook

I'm still working on my Sweet Williams, rustic lace flowers

First a little colourful pile of centre circles

And then the second round shaping

And of course a touch of hookin in front of the tennis at Wimbledon

Although I don't complete a flower daily, I'm still continuing with my floral mood blanket, completing a batch at a time. Sadly i'm getting a bit slack with the ends though!

With the hot weather and Wimbledon what better excuse was there to have some strawberries and ice cream.....

Sunny South Coast...

This week we spent a lovely few days down on the South Coast, and the weather was glorious. We stayed with family in Lancing, and on arrival, after refreshments, we set off down to the town and headed straight towards the beach. After a little tour, the left us to wander, and we headed towards Brooklands park for some lunch.

We couldn't help ourselves, we had to indulge in a bit of geocaching whilst there, and found two by the seafront.

The sun was gleaming, and the waves were lapping, an instantly relaxing sound to me. 

The tide was going out, revealing squidgy sand, leaving its ripple marks, and little pools.

My face was positively glowing on return.

The following day we took a trip to Worthing. The sun was still beating down, and after our morning coffee we took a stroll around town, which had a great mix of high street and independent stores. I found a lovely little craft makers store, the Craft Tea gift shop, where I spotted Made with my very own hands, whom i follow on Facebook, its a small world. 

We ventured down to the seafront, and walked along the pier, where we always like to have a little play on the 2p machines! At the end of the pier, was a cafe decorated in 1930's style, which had been recommended to us, so we stopped for afternoon tea. I can assure you it is well worth a visit, I can imagine it must be a great atmosphere when a pianist is performing.

We thoroughly enjoyed our day and felt very at home there. Again we relaxed watching the tide go out.

For our last full day we planned a trip to Brighton. Firstly, we stopped at Shoreham-by-sea, as we'd been told about some house boats that were well worth a nosy at! They were much larger than I was expecting, and a variety of styles from quirky to modern.

We took the bus to Brighton, and after a panic that hubby may of lost his phone and the time consuming issue of getting family phone numbers to find out, and me getting hassle from work, we were eventually able to kick back and enjoy our day. We strolled around North Laine, taking in the atmosphere and stopped for some lunch.

We again ventured towards the sea and had our fun on the pier, the wind picked up by late afternoon so we took the train back and enjoyed another lovely evening meal.

We had a leisurely morning, after packing up our belongings, we took a stroll around the garden.

And went for a drive along Worthing coastline and stopped at the infamous Sea lane cafe, where we were treated to lunch.

It may have only been a few days, but being away from home and everyday routine did us the world of good, and the bonus of warm sunshine and sea air.

Back home, and the following day we were adjusting to being back so decided to go for a walk and do a spot of geocaching. We found a couple, but our intention of staying local ended up being a 5 mile hike across the other side of town, and having to give up on 2 others.

But there was plenty of pretty Spring blooms and blossoms to see along the way, and an area of large houses ( the size of 3), always good to see how the other half live!

Crafting wise I caught up with my mood flowers

and I've started another Chrysanthemum cushion front in a different colourway, and this time I will write the pattern down as I go!

It's going to be a shock to the system to go back to work, and i'm sure we will be counting the time down till we can go away again!

Relaxation crochet, and corner makeover...

So this week has been a lot more relaxed and not so dominated by work. Had more time to rest and for me and my little hook... Oh and I finally got round to getting a haircut, which was months overdue!
We did partake in pancake day, well it has to be done, doesn't it!

We have also been trying to focus some of our attentions on the house.
This week we decided to change the pc corner.

Since having a laptop we rarely use this area, it's become a bit redundant. So we searched for a new unit, and I came across one in our local heart foundation store. We compared it to others in furniture stores but all other entertainment units were too low. This was a perfect size and actually matched some of our other furniture.

This enabled hubby to bring his stereo unit out of the garage. Once we are able to connect our laptop to the printer, which means finding a disk buried in the depths of the garage, we will be able to get rid of the monitor and keyboard. I'm really pleased with our find and how it looks, but the area does look a bit techy for my liking, not enough pretty things on it, but for now I can live with it..

I've had some little jars tucked away for awhile, and as hubby likes to carry less and less change with him, i thought they needed to turn into penny jars.

But we couldn't just have plain glass jars, and coins to look at, these needed a colour makeover...

Aaaah, now thats better, now its a pretty, cosy, colour corner...

I gave myself time off from joining my mini squares cushion, to relieve the boredom, but I did get plenty of it done, honest!!

 Why is it when you have to focus on finishing something off, is the time when that you think of so many new projects that you'd like to start...

So my mood square this week is made up from a multi-toned lilac yarn, for my lovely relaxation sessions, with a contrasting turquoise for working on our homely tasks.

This one will need blocking before it gets attached, as for some reason its a bit tight, and doesn't lay as flat as the others.

Hooray for sunshine this week, what a refreshing change. Although i'm sure there must be some nasty, evil snow lurking somewhere in the future, i'm happy to take the spring feeling...

PS... I've just spotted that this is my 100th blog post... how exciting!!