November 17th was the chosen day for Photo An Hour this month. As with last month I didn't realise until I was scrolling through my Instagram feed at lunchtime but my morning was pretty standard.

Weekends don't really hold the same meaning for me as Andy always works and as a self employed person the working week doesn't really exist. I work as and when I need to.

So my day started as any other day does. Feed cats, make tea, empty or load the dishwasher, put some washing in the machine, sort out the litter tray. Breakfast, shower, make a to-do list for the day.

I had two things on my list for the day, to make progress with decorating the bedroom (possibly even get it finished!) and get some knitting done.
Fresh out of the shower I found Socks curled into a ball and had to fight the urge to climb back into bed and join in him in his snoozing.


Come lunchtime I'd managed to do one of the things on my list - knitting. It seems I'm incapable of finishing a project before I start another. At some point in the near future this pile of body parts will resemble three bunny rabbits.


By the time 1 o'clock rolled around Andy had been home for lunch - baked beans on toast - and he'd made me a cuppa before heading back out to work for the afternoon. I sat contemplating my next move.


By 2 o'clock I was upstairs in the bedroom. I'd sanded the threshold step so I could stain it, and I'd done some touching up on the skirting boards that I'd painted the day before. This isn't the carpet, it's the ancient underlay. We've been looking at carpet samples for weeks. They're all so similar - mid brown with a slight fleck - we couldn't tell the difference between them so we've just opted for the least expensive of the lot. I plan to buy a huge rug to cover most of it anyway (not that I've revealed this plan to Andy yet...).


At 3 o'clock I was waiting for the stain to dry and had grabbed my book hoping to finally finish it. I'd been reading this book since the beginning of the month and wanted to get it read. I'd been reading a few pages here and there and as a result the story felt fractured. I needed a good chunk of time to concentrate on it. Now that harvest is over Andy is home before bedtime I tend to read a lot less, but if I take too long over a book I often forget important plot points!


I light the fire everyday at around 4 o'clock before it gets dark. I can't believe that it's mid November and we haven't had to turn the central heating on yet. I know we will soon but this is unheard of (the temperature has dropped since and the heating went on for the first time November 20th).


Still on the sofa at 5 o'clock, still with a cat on my lap, and a book in hand, Andy came home and joined us. Which is where we stayed other than to cook and eat supper. I had hoped to nip up to the bedroom and give the step another coat of stain but I just didn't have the motivation. It was far nicer to stay on the sofa, in the warm, with my husband and the girl cat.

The evening was predictably spent watching Strictly Come Dancing.

Thanks to Jane and Louisa for hosting #PhotoAnHour. 

Saturday 22nd September was #PhotoAnHour. Thanks to Jane and Louisa for hosting.

My plans to get stuck into some DIY were thwarted when a few days earlier I woke up with incredibly stiff shoulders and limited movement. I had to shelve the DIY idea for a while.

8am - A soothing bubble bath was the first order of business for the day. I'm not sure it did anything to ease my shoulders but I never need much of an excuse to soak for a while.


9am - I booked a deep tissue massage - half an hour of being rubbed and soothed, wincing when she hit the really tight spots. I left feeling a little bit like I'd been beaten up.


10am - My shoulders did feel a bit better but still tight and a little uncomfortable. This didn't stop me having a wander around the charity shops though. I picked up some wool. Age Concern has a good selection of wool at only £1.69 a ball so I stocked up on Christmassy colours to make some (more) pom pom wreaths.


11am - Picking up essentials - milk, hummus and Voltarol! Seriously, what else does a person need to survive?


12pm - Knitting. I haven't knitted this pattern for years. It knits up really quickly and it was nice to start and finish a project in such a short space of time.


1pm Lunch. Totally obsessed with scrambled eggs and avocado on toast at the moment.


2pm - My fridge decided to stop working. I have no idea how old it was but it was here when we moved in seven years ago. It had been on it's last legs for a while and finally just silently stopped. I spent a few days freezing bottles of water to act as cool packs to try and keep the food fresh before the new one arrived, but we did have to chuck some in the bin, which I absolutely hate doing!

Anyway, I measured up for a new one, ordered it online and waited for it to be delivered. I had to pay for delivery, and an extra £20 for them to take the old one away, but I wasn't going to spend a further £20 for them to install it when installation was simply pushing it into a gap and plugging it in.

But the new fridge turned out to be wider than stated on the website and didn't fit, it was about 1mm too wide. It was repacked within 20 minutes of being delivered.

A new (narrower) fridge was ordered and when it arrived two days later (with free delivery this time thankfully) I pushed it into the gap with ease... but the power cord was too short to reach the plug! My frustration prevented me from coming up with the very sensible and easy solution of using an extension lead. Thank goodness for my husband.


3pm If there is one thing that can soothe me and a bad mood it's my cats and a whole bunch of wool. I was trying to sort my wool by colour so I could see what I'd got and decide what to knit next. Socks thought I was making him a little nest to sit in and made himself comfortable. It's impossible to get annoyed with him, look at that face.


4pm I'm not sure if Andy came home because he'd finished for the day, if the weather prevented him doing what he needed to do, or if it was just because he was so tired, but it was nice to see him in daylight! Even if he did just nod off on the sofa. I was happy to let him snooze but Tinker wanted him awake and making a fuss of her, and wasn't in the least bit impressed that he'd chosen to do otherwise.

This was when I stopped taking photos. We decided on fish n chips for supper whilst watching Strictly Come Dancing.

It felt as if autumn had well and truly arrived.

The 18th was #PhotoAnHour day in August. I took part, posting most of my day on Instagram.

8am Late to bed, late to rise. After a late night watching Much Ado About Nothing at the Theatre in the Forest, I needed a big coffee, even if it was only decaf.


9am Tried out a solid hair conditioner from Lush for the first time. I keep it (and my solid shampoo) wrapped in @beeswaxwraps_uk reusable wraps. I didn't like it at first, but it seems to be getting easier with each use. It's very different from liquid conditioners so took some getting used to, but I think I'm going to stick with it. I might have to do a weekly olive oil hair mask as well but it saves on plastic packaging.


10am And the cleaning began. The kitchen got a thorough spring clean (in the summer).


11am Tea break, or more accurately, a jasmine green tea break.  


12pm When shuffle knocks you sideways with THE song that is guaranteed to make you cry. Every. Single. Time. Listen to it here, it's beautiful.


1pm Lunch. Omelette with smoked salmon, spring onion, pepper, feta and chives. 


2pm Going for a ride with Andy. He was working in a field within walking distance of home, so I hitched a ride. It's the most time I'd spent (awake) with Andy all week.


3pm Being dropped off as close to home as you can get in this. Andy was off to a field further away, so I headed to the sofa for knitting and a film.


4pm Sewing up and together, my least favourite part of knitting.


5pm In the company of cats. I have a feeling that Socks had a touch of lap envy.


6pm I gave up on the sewing up and knitted ears instead. Two pairs, because ...


7pm ... I can never have just one knitting project on the go at any one time. I have a monkey without arms, a dog without limbs or ears, and several pieces of what will, one day, be a rabbit. None of these projects have progressed any further because I've started knitting an alien.


8pm The one nice thing about Andy working late is that I can go to bed early with a book. I got to read for an hour before Andy came home and dropped into bed.      

Thanks to Jane and Louisa for hosting.

The first full weekend of the month saw England play (and beat) Sweden in The World Cup. I watched the game alone as Andy was gearing up for harvest and working all day, everyday. He hadn't started working into the evenings but as kick-off was a 3pm, he missed the game.

I sat down with an elderflower spritzer and picked up my knitting (standard practice when watching football, yes?). I can't just sit and watch football, I have to have something else to do (I used knitting to ease the tension of the England vs Columbia penalties). By the end of the game I realised that I'd finished my third lion. Apt, right?

It seems like an eternity ago already, it's a shame we didn't make the final, but didn't the England team do us proud?

The Sunday was all about pom poms and writing blog posts. I always have 20 - 30 posts in draft, some which need updating as time goes on - my seasonal list, or my Day Zero updates for example, and others that I just need to get on and finish!


The following Saturday was Latitude. I camped at a site in Dunwich with friends on the Friday and Saturday nights. On the Friday I made my way to the campsite to help set up the tents in the afternoon. Whilst my friend returned to Ipswich to pick up his kids from school, I spent a few hours on the beach. I read, I napped a little, and I made a sea bouquet for our tent - something every tent should have!

The evening consisted of a BBQ on the beach, and sitting around a bonfire until 1am catching up with friends I haven't seen for far too long.


The next day we didn't get to the festival until 2pm and our first stop was to find food! I don't feel like I explored as much of the festival as I normally do. I didn't go into the forest at all, and there were lots of new things that I just didn't get time to check out.


I did meet up with Sophie though, and we fell back into our normal Latitude routine of bouncing between the Radio 6 tent and the main arena, with trips to the bar in between. I then found the friends I'd arrived with and headed to the main stage to watch The Killers. They were awesome. The 2 hour wait to get out of the car park however, was no fun at all. It was chaos and there was not a single warden around to help. Luckily I wasn't driving so I was able to get some sleep in the back of the car.

On the Sunday I got up surprisingly early considering I didn't get to bed until almost 2.30am. The day consisted of slowly packing up the tent, whilst drinking mug after mug of tea, and making my way home.

Andy was at work until late and I arrived home to an empty house with a touch of the festival blues. I made a pom pom wreath to keep myself occupied.

I'm hoping to go to Latitude for the entire weekend next year. I feel like I missed so much by only going for one day, but I did enjoy the camping tremendously. It's years since I've been.

The third weekend of the month was one I decided would be just general pottering and with a little being sociable thrown in.

The Saturday was all about pom pom making, and in the evening I went to friends house to watch a scary movie. The film was IT, which was rather good and thankfully not as scary as I thought it would be. Then we watched a documentary about a haunted farm house in the middle of nowhere. It was terrifying, and then I had to drive home to my farmhouse in the middle of nowhere... I had to have a cup of tea and a sit in the garden with my friends until I felt brave enough to drive home alone. In the cold light of day this seems ridiculous, at nearly 1am in the near pitch black it seems totally reasonable.


Sunday I made more pom poms (have I mentioned how addictive it is?) and Andy was working close by so he popped home for lunch, which was a lovely and unexpected surprise. Later I nipped to my  brother's for a while and came home with an abandoned knitting project to frog and make into more pom poms.


The final weekend was dedicated, once again, to pom poms. I made my biggest one yet - 14". Saturday was Photo An Hour and Sunday consisted of more pom poms and the making of a Malteser cheesecake for my nephew's 18th Birthday BBQ the following day.

...................

It was my wish at the beginning of the year to avoid that Sunday night feeling of a weekend wasted. My goal was to have a plan in place for the coming weekend by each Friday evening. July seems to have been largely dominated by pom poms (if you're wondering about the pom poms you can read more here. Long story short - I had a load of green wool that needed a use, I decided pom pom wreaths were the answer, and I'll be selling them on a craft stall in September, October and November), but it's also been a good month for seeing friends I haven't seen in far too long.

More snow. It's spring now, sort it out.

Anyway, my plan for the weekend was a simple one, to knit.

I had a few knitting projects in progress, and two I wanted to start and finish before Easter arrived, so I got my sticks out, plonked myself on the sofa, and set to it. The snow wasn't deep enough to go outside and build a snowman (or snowcat), and the wind was brutal, so what else was I to do?

I started Monkey Moo several weeks ago using an odd ball of eyelash wool I picked up for 50p in a charity shop. It's not something I've used before, and the jury is still out. Good points? No one can see any mistakes as they're hidden by the fluff. Bad points? On smaller pieces you can't see the edges to sew it up.

Words were muttered, bad words.

That said, it might be nice to use for a larger project, hence jury still sitting awkwardly on the fence, trying not to fall off.

I only had one leg left to make before I could claim a victory over this troublesome wool, I wasn't going to be defeated. I love this Monkey Moo pattern, and I think his fluffy head looks super cute (but maybe his nose isn't quite right?) but I prefer him when rendered in normal wool.

I have a lion pattern, and the mane might be a good use for the remaining wool ...?


I then turned my attention to another partially finished project and finished this pink bunny, and then started a grey one with longer, floppier ears. I want to keep them both, but they're destined to be given away as Easter gifts.


I'm now working my way through a puppy. Only half a leg and two arms to go.  I'm sticking with just one wool throughout on this one, it's a slightly textured wool and works beautifully for this pattern. I think I'm going to want to keep him as well.

Do you knit? What's on your sticks?

It was my wish at the beginning of the year to avoid that Sunday night feeling of a weekend wasted. My goal was to have a plan in place for the coming weekend by each Friday evening. This weekend, in addition to knitting and tutting at the weather, I played delivery driver for my brother, and my Dad, ate Chinese food, and enjoyed a roast chicken dinner, cooked by my husband, with his parents.

Weekend well spent.

I can not believe it's nearly Christmas, I really don't know where the time has gone. Some of the things on this list seem like I did them eons ago, and yet I ran out of time to do them all. Still, it's been a lovely season in many ways. Winter maybe upon us but that means spring isn't far away and soon we'll have a whole brand new year in which to marvel at how quickly it is passing.

Here's how I got on with my autumn things-to-do list

Make fat balls for the birds and keep them coming throughout autumn and winter
Making these was messy and rather satisfying. I found a super simple recipe (some seemed necessarily complicated) and got stuck in. I made enough to fill my feeders twice over and have enough ingredients to continue making them well into the new year.

Watch a scary movie on Halloween
I didn't watch a movie but I did start to watch series 6 of The Walking Dead. I don't find this scary as such, however I can't watch it when it's dark outside.

Watch under 16s football from the sidelines (so much better than watching the overpaid 'professionals')
One of my nephews plays, and my brother is team manager. I enjoy watching a game or two and can be found shouting things like 'Go on Wanderers!' or 'Ref, are you blind?!!!!' whenever I grace the sidelines. This is rather uncharacteristic as I detest professional football.

Knit!
I got my sticks out and decided to make some toys, I knitted a lion (Leo) and a monkey (Moo). The monkey has been made several times before. He's really easy to knit, and so is perfect for my limited skills.

Spend Black Friday making handmade gifts
Rolling two goals into one, I was knitting on Black Friday. Leo and Moo are going to a good home in March when a friend's brother's baby boy arrives.

Make your own chai latte
I've long wanted to make my own, but all the different ingredients meant I was always missing one ingredient or another. I found a really simple cheat recipe and ordered myself some teapigs chai tea temples and a milk whisk and I was all set. Accompanied by a mince pie, it was pretty perfect. If you make it, please just remember to put the whisk in the milk and then turn it on. I didn't do that and splatter myself with milk, oh no (I did).

Paint pottery
I daubed a large bauble and a cute Father Christmas face at Crafty Coffee in Felixstowe - a lovely little place if you're ever in the area. And if you don't fancy painting anything, and they're not busy, they don't mind you just having a coffee and munching on a (delicious) cheese scone.

Go on a charity shop search for warm woollens
I did go on a good romp around the charity shops but found only one jumper, a lovely emerald green fine knit, originally from Zara. I'd say it's more of a summer knit but I'm not afraid of a bit of layering. I also found a lovely scarf - super soft and super huge!

Eat a Cadbury's Ghoost Egg, or a box of Mr Kipling's Fiendish Fancies, or both
Both, and some Mr Kipling Toffee Terror Whirls that had been reduced the day after Halloween :)

Get cosy and read
Over Autumn I read much less than I intended. I only read three books and given that I've read 45 books this year, it doesn't seem like much. My favourite of these books was A Boy Made of Blocks by Keith Stuart. I read a review over on t*rexes and tiaras in October last year, it came highly recommended so I put it on my to-read list. As luck would have it I found it in a charity shop in the summer and it didn't disappoint!

And the goals that life got in the way of  - prepare a crumble using foraged fruits and serve with piping hot custard, enjoy a homemade soup for lunch with fresh crusty granary rolls, needle felt some acorns, light a bonfire and roast marshmallows, plant spring flowering bulbs, turn off the TV and do a jigsaw puzzle (we got waaaaay to into watching box sets for this).

Maybe I'll get to do all of these things next year instead?

And so on to winter, what are your favourite winter pursuits?

Greenhouse pottering
I've spent a lot of time in my greenhouse this week, it's old and and in need of some serious TLC but I love it. I'm growing numerous things but sometimes I just sit in there with a cup of tea, sometimes with a book. It's warm, my cats love to join me in there and at this time of year, when the weather can be a little chilly, it allows me to be outside without having to brave the elements.

Knitting
Every once in a while I get the urge to knit. I love knitting Monkey Moo, he knits up super quick and is always loved by his recipient.

Baking
A slightly out of date jar of lemon curd inspired me to pop on my pinny and make some Lemon Curd Thumbprint Cookies (I wasn't about to let a use by date cheat me out of the lemony goodness). They're utterly delicious! It's left me with a hankering to bake more often, perhaps some banana oat cookies...?

Reading
My current read is charming, and one I found via Yarn Along - Sylvia's Farm: The Journal of an Improbable Shepherd by Sylvia Jorrin. I'm really enjoying the short chapters, each a stand alone story of the farm. It leaves me a desire to make the most of each and every single day, to do just one more thing to work towards a goal, and to be happy and grateful with my lot.

Changing my routine
I decided to change my working hours in an attempt to have a little more routine to my days. Now I work in the mornings, I'm at my desk by 8am and finish some where between noon and 1pm.

The afternoons are mine. This is when I get my housework done, or I potter in the greenhouse, maybe read for an hour, write my meal plan, bake, go for a walk. It feels nice to know that after lunch I can ignore the emails and focus on everything else that life entails.

Before doing this, I had a 'just quickly' mindset, where I'd just quickly pop some washing on, just quickly run the vacuum around, just quickly nip outside and water the plants. I found that I'd 'work' a full day but rarely get more than half a days work done.

If I need to work into the afternoon then I do but I find this way I can concentrate on the task in hand. I feel like I'm achieving more each day. Multitasking has it's place but day-to-day I'm finding it's better to focus on one thing at a time.

Also
Having a bit of a bee moment. Thanks to Instagram I was alerted to a rather delicious sounding coconut and pear lip balm, it's limited edition and for each one sold 5,000 wild flower seeds are planted. Isn't that lovely? I purchased three (they're as nice as they sound), and gave one to my Mum.

I also uploaded a #SelflessSelfie via the Burt's Bees website, they add flowers to your selfie and with each one uploaded a further 5,000 seeds are planted.

Meanwhile in my own garden I've been planting bee friendly plants and made a bee bath, but that's for another post...

What have you been up to this week?

It's been a little while since I joined in with Ginny's Yarn Along due to the fact that my knitting sticks have been bare. Wanting to keep up with some simple knitting projects I treated myself to a Sirdar Head Start bobble hat kit.

After a quick trip to my local craft shop to grab some 8mm needles I started today. It's knitting up really quickly and is super soft. If the weather continues as it has been then I'll be getting a lot of use out of it.

It comes with a fluffy lilac bobble but I'm tempted to find some wool in a similar colour and make myself a bigger, floppy bobble instead.

As for my reading I've just finished Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton. It's an advanced reader copy sent to me by a client, so I feel quite lucky to have read it. It's YA title but I really enjoyed it, despite not being it's target audience. And the fact that it's set in the desert, and I'm just back from a trip to the Sahara, I could imagine the feel of the sand, the smell of the desert, and the dark of the night.

It's the first in a series of three and I have to say I'm looking forward to books 2 and 3. The first book is out in February.

What are you knitting and reading?

I've just finished knitting my coin purse and need to attached it to the frame and add a lining. I had to frog my first attempt (thanks for all of you who informed of the origin of the term, it makes perfect sense now), it was too big. I had it sewn onto the frame, the lining in, and the button embellishment attached but it didn't feel right. It was more bag than purse so I decided to start again. You can find the pattern here.

One day I might show you a finished project!

I'm reading Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's Learned by Lena Dunham. It's interesting to read a book aimed at a much younger audience but it's funny to cringe and smile at all of the things I identify with and recall from my younger years (thank goodness those years are behind me now). This is a handy book for the younger generation, and it's written well. She has a nice writing style and a tone of voice that's funny, self depreciating and likable. I'm about half way though.

I enjoy a Q&A post and I've seen this one about reading habits on a few blogs now, Eileen and Janet to name a few, and thought it would be apt for today's post. I find the habits of others fascinating, so if you want to give it a go, let me know in the comments below.

Do you have a certain place at home for reading?
Mostly I read in bed. You might occasionally find me on the sofa, under a blanket with a book and a cat. Other than that I read sitting outside in the sunshine, sometimes with a cat.

Where do you like to read?
Other than in bed, or in my garden? On a beach or beside a pool.

Bookmark or random piece of paper?
Both. I have a ribbon bookmark made by my Mum but I also use random scraps of paper or if someone gives me a book as a gift and it comes with a gift tag I use that.

Can you just stop reading or do you have to stop after a chapter?
I can just stop reading. I get to the point most night when I'm falling asleep with a book in my hand. I close it, drop it on the floor and I'm asleep within minutes. The next night I have to re-read the last few pages I read as I remember little of it.

Do you eat or drink while reading?
I often read with a cup of tea, I don't generally eat though. I might nibble on a bar of chocolate.

E-reader or real book?
Real book, I've never read anything on an e-reader. I get that they are good for taking lots of books traveling or are good for commuting but I work from home, and also I read slowly so I find one book on a week's holiday is plenty.

Music or TV while reading?
Nope. I prefer silence. I get distracted by noise.

One book at a time or several at once?
One at a time, but I can read a novel and a reference book at the same time but I prefer to stick to one story at a time.

Reading at home or everywhere?
Generally just at home or when traveling a long distance.

Reading aloud or silently in your head?
In my head. I can't skim read though, I have to read every single word, which is why I read so slowly.

Fiction or non-fiction?
A mixture. Novels are the norm but I do like a biography once in a while.

Do you read ahead or skip pages?
No, I don't see the point. Why spoil it?

Break the spine or keep it like new?
Break the spine. I like a book to look like it's been read.

Do you write in your books?
I have done, but generally just my name and a date. I buy a lot of second hand books and I like to find a name or something written inside. I like to feel that a book has been read and enjoyed over and over. I think it gives the book life, I see books sitting on shelves unread, or read just once and I think they have a sad quality.

Favourite book?
This is an impossible question! One book that has remained on my shelf through numerous clear outs is Yarn Harlot by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. It's charming and very apt for Yarn Along!

What are you knitting and reading?

(Day 39 of blogging everyday for 40 days. Only one more day!)

It seems like only five minutes since the last Yarn Along.

I'm still reading The Return by Victoria Hislop. I'm about half way through. I'm really enjoying it, it's set in Granada, Spain and goes between modern day and 1936, it's wonderfully descriptive whilst keeping a good pace to the story. I plan to install myself on the sofa on Sunday, anchored by a sleeping cat, to get it finished.

I've started a new little knitting project (my attention span is so short that I'm avoiding larger projects at the moment). I've been looking for a new coin purse with no luck, so I decided to knit one instead.

I have the wool, I have a button for embellishment (I love buttons), and the purse frame is ordered and on it's way.

The knitting has begun, although I don't want to go too much further as I need to measure it against the frame to check it's the correct width. There is nothing more demoralising than unraveling rows and rows of stitches! (is the correct term frogging? I've never understood the term).

Anyway, I'm more excited by this purse than I would've been by simply buying one.

What are you knitting and reading?

(Day 18 of blogging everyday for 40 days)