Twenty Days of June

Hello! It's still hot and sunny here, we're having a lovely June! It has, though, been a busy month so far and I've realised I've not actually posted about any of the things we've done in June yet, so here goes...

At the beginning of the month we had our local Gala day. A big part of this is a procession through the village with a costumed parade, pipe bands, and decorated floats.

Here is our float:

The nursery is celebrating its 25th anniversary, hence all the silver. We chose an orchestra theme as the children have recently been learning about musical instruments during their sessions at nursery. It's a community nursery so parents are heavily involved, all the decorating of the float was carried out by a group of parents. Many evenings have been spent drawing, cutting and foiling cardboard shapes, but it was all worth it in the end as we won first prize! By the way, the instrument silhouettes (you can see them best in the top photo) were drawn round my double bass and cello - so having these things taking up precious space in your house does sometimes come in useful! I actually had a "proper" concert that evening so as soon as I was off the float I was straight out to the afternoon rehearsal (after a quick costume change of course!).

The a few days later...

...we celebrated A's 5th birthday.

Rather a large and filling cake for just four of us but we managed.

We had a garden party for her friends a couple of days later at which I annoying forgot to take any photos. I made a chocolate fudge cake for the party but it wasn't one of my best - the icing was too runny, but it tasted OK.

I did remember to put the bunting up...

... A's teddy relaxes after the party.

I've not had time for any Saturday morning bike rides in June, but I did get out one evening.

I didn't stop to take many photos, here's the only one I liked, Ben Lomond is in the distance.

A's nursery also had their summer outing. We went here. Again the weather was brilliant and the children all had a lovely time. We didn't have very long at the park though, meaning that there's plenty we didn't manage to see or do which justifies a return visit soon.

Now back home and a little view of the garden. I bought a new parasol from B&Q and I'm rather liking the summery stripes - they match the green ladies mantle, pink peonies, blue sky and yellow sunshine!

While we're about it, here are three more favourite June garden photos...


Also in the garden...

...my blooming African Flower blanket, and...

...well, I just thought I'd have a little crochet photo shoot. On the chair furthest back is may latest completed project - N's cushion.

Adding the red and lime really jazzes things up. Of the three round cushions I have done this is my favourite which was rather unexpected as they're not the colours I would have chosen for myself.

On impulse, I decided to enter the cushion into the industrial section of our local agricultural show (held yesterday) along with...

Empire Biscuits...

Tablet...

and a plain iced chocolate cake.

The results...

...First prize for my cushion - woo hoo! Third for the empire biscuits (better than last year), highly commended for my chocolate cake, and just commended for my tablet (worse than last year which I was a little disappointed by but it's quite soft fudgy tablet so maybe the judge just prefers the hard sugary type).

All the children at A's nursery enter a drawing to the show, A's picture of a cow came second which was fantastic for such a large entry (I should confess here and say that my cushion was first out of, ahem, two entries, haha!)

The vintage tractors were A & N's favourite show feature, you can see then having a go an the far left.

Today we had the nursery garden party which was rather fortunate as I was able to put all my excess baking from the show on the home baking stall. Unfortunately, I then went and bought at least as much again! I was on lucky dip duty, I wrapped 59 prizes in one evening, why can't I wrap Christmas presents as quickly!

Well, if you've managed this far you're doing great! I'll reward you with some yummy crochet pictures(!)

Deciding which African Flower centers to use next.

A close-up of the blanket so far.

And that's all for now! Phew.