TARRAGON & THYME

Having techy issues at moment sometimes connects but then suddenly goes off the phone is not much better.  Will be back as sorted.  Pattypan xx

I ts been a very busy first day back at work.  And my feet have not stopped running around since I got home. I have literally just sat down to have some egg custard and five minutes rest to write this post and then it will be upwards and onwards again. After having tea I nipped into the garden and started in the area outside the back door and I now have the little section near the back door done.  Mind you I was outside from about 6:40pm until just gone 9:00pm. So that is that little section done I am going to now have to gradually work myself down the pavement until we get to the shed.  OH is going to the tip again and so a lot more rubbish has joined the pile.  I have even managed to wash the area that I have sorted just by the back door down with clean water and as I have said I am going to work my way down the pavement.  Will have another bash tomorrow night on the next small section.  Until I get it done.  I am not putting a time limit on it....

Now that the nights are far lighter I am trying to plan ahead again.  I am usually shattered when I get home from work so a little time in the garden should not come amiss and help restore my inner peace and serenity.  Sometimes under the surface it is bubbling to such an extent that I feel I am going to explode and that is what I am trying to do at all costs avoid explosions. A while back I purchased some oval tubs from B & amp; M the idea being that I would plant some strawberries in two of them and some veggie seeds in the other two.  Because of the weather that has not happened yet but is about to.  I have some of the strawberry plants I have just to get a couple of bags of compost and then that will be another thing ticked off the list and then hopefully some strawberries for tea during the summer. Yesterday I bought herbs for the herb garden 12 mixed plants including Tarragon, Coriander, Dill, thyme, lemon thyme, parsley, chervil, Rosemary,...

I have a lot of them especially from the home of my parents and others that have been given to me over the years,  Precious photographs, photographs of people who were family members who I never had the chance to meet but have heard so much about, photographs of loved ones who I knew and have now passed and photos of my birth family and special times.  No end of photographs and then there are the photos that my dad took as well.  I want to sort out in due course some "official albums" but I also want to put them online for my family to have access to if they want to as well.  I think this will be a job for the winter months more than anything else.  A lot of photographs I am not sure who they are and some of them its as though I am instinctively knowing who these people are and being able to place them successfully and receiving outside confirmation of this as well.  I am hoping once I have got the photos sorted a bit more to have a word with my cousin (sh...

We have been fortunate in the weather today no rain, the sun has been out and it has been a lot warmer and the sap feels as though it has risen on the barometer - Spring Fever.  When I get Spring Fever which I do every year I end up craving fresher lighter food especially after the substantial meals of the winter months. After going to the Pasta shop OH and I did a detour and went to a new Lidl store that had been built at Werrington which is a lot bigger than our normal store off of Westfield Road.  It was new, bigger, and not as squashed but the store had no soul no identity.  Everything was set out in pristine fashion but the feeling was clinical and dead and this computerised advertising tannoy kept speaking out.  They had not got half the bays filled.  The staff were trying to load up and blocking the gangways to get by with shoppers and their trolleys which was causing congestion.  For the size of the store there was not enough staff and to tel...

For many years I have been trying to get to this well established community shop and for one reason or another it just has not happened.  It has happened by chance now in a very unusual way.  OH is a fan of Provolone and has been unable to get a decent version anywhere.  He was speaking to one of his female colleagues at work (who happens to be Italian) and she was amazed he had not been to the Pasta shop.  He went during the week on his way home from work (whilst I was on my sick bed) and came back with all sorts of goodies. Today is the first day I have been out all week although I am still absolutely full of cold and after our breakfast at "Ferraris" which again was very good (On Mayors Walk near the Record and Veg shop).  It seems to be becoming a regular thing and a regular routine with us on a Saturday morning.  They also do bulk orders or deliveries to local businesses and are a great couple Laura and Johnny and despite being new to our neck of ...

Whilst general day to day living and dreadful weather have been going on I have kept to my promise and have been working on my needlepoint panel to the exclusion of anything else. Beavering away where I can, I have continued  to nibble away bit by bit at the part worked needlepoint panel.  So far there are about 24 man hours gone into this small panel alone and it is still not finished.  I do  not think it will be long before it is finished though. There is still quite a bit of colour-work to be done on this panel but at least working the cream background first is showing up the differences between the greens a lot better than working it the other way round.  Near enough one side has been completely worked.  I am well chuffed with how it is turning out.  I have enlarged the last photo so that you can literally see where I have been.  It is finer work than usual needlepoint which when you are tired and go one further over than you sh...