Overflowing

Hello and happy Easter! I didn't mean to leave it so long between posts, I thought I'd have so much free time this holiday to blog (hahaha) but our days have just been so full in the nicest possible way, with many happy times to document and share here. I haven't even had time to go through all the photos from this bank holiday weekend, that will have to be another post. 

The weather this holiday, bar the odd wet day, has been beautifully dry and sunny. It has at times been cold, but has now warmed up to almost summery temperatures and it's made everything so much easier and more enjoyable. No wet dog walks with muddy dog or wellies, no bored, cooped up children. Instead we've been outside so much, just in the garden or going further afield and enjoying days out.

John's parents came to stay with us for the second week of the holidays and it was really good to have some unhurried, quality time with them. We've also had lots of time just the four of us, in the park, cooking and eating together, hanging out in the garden, just pottering.

We've enjoyed some excellent days out, The Mary Rose Museum and West Dean Gardens being particular favourites. West Dean Gardens is one of my favourite places to go, especially just to wander up and down their incredible historic glass houses.

I've also enjoyed a bit of quiet magazine reading this week with two biannual publications, one bought, one free: 91 Magazine is probably my favourite magazine right now, and absolutely worth every single penny, and I am so excited when my copy lands on the doormat. I read it cover to cover, appreciate the absence of adverts and find it endlessly inspiring. 

South Coast Journal is a new free magazine stocked in the Chichester area and I am especially excited about it because I was involved in the content, producing a feature around summer eating for them. It's a great publication full of really strong content and I'm really proud to be a part of it.

Small pleasures have featured heavily this week, with little treats like a good flat white coffee and a piece of lemon curd slice eaten in the sunshine, or an early evening pint in a pub beer garden. I really cherish those first few meals eaten outside in the spring after so many cold, wet months. 

There has been crochet this week, of course, but not as much as I'd hoped. I'm on the home stretch with this ombre shawl now, with just the border left to do. I don't think it will need much blocking which is just as well as it's so enormous, I don't know where I'd have space to lay it out, stretch it and pin it. The garden?

I also made a start on this basket which I'm loving - you crochet with the light brown cotton over two strands of the chunky cream yarn, giving a woven effect and more structure to the basket too.  

My luck with second hand books continues, as I found a few more Observer reference guides this week, two from a second hand bookshop, one from a charity shop and one more posted from a friend.

The rainbow grows. The appeal for me is largely visual with these little books but, for those wondering, I keep all the covers and I dip into them from time to time. Well, flick through them really. They are so useful, especially the ones on wild flowers and plants. 

All my spring flowers have gone over now in the garden. I rescued this raggle taggle posy of the only tulips not destroyed by the football, a few narcissi which still smell so sweet and the last of the muscari.

Now I need to think about what's next in the garden, pull up the bulbs, plant some sweet peas. It pains me to say this, but what the garden could really do with is a little rain, but not until I'm back at work please.