Blankets, Branches and Birds.

The turtle blanket goes for its first swim...

...in future, when a small boy is not feeling well I'll give him an easy wash-fleece blanket to snuggle and not one of the crochet blankets. Barf and crochet do not mix!

I hand washed the blanket which is made of a mixture of acrylic (fine to wash) and charity shop wool (super felty!), then put it in the machine on a slow spin. At the end of the spin I fully expected to open the machine and find a mass of woolly ends and tangles, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover the blanket was all in one unstretched, unshrunk piece and that no ends had started to unravel. Phew! N is still a little under the weather though, which is a shame as we had three days off for half term but as a result of the sickness bug we were inclined to stay close to home.

We've had some relatively nice weather over the break (apologies for the gloomy and moany tone of my last post - I don't mind February if the sun shines!). While all was bright I decided to see how my pile was developing...

...crochet blanket pile that is. Two are completed - at the bottom is the african flower blanket, second from top is the newly washed turtle blanket. One just needs a few more ends sewn (second from bottom), and my current daisy project is at the top of the pile.

Since the African flower blanket I do seem to have gone for a more definite blue and green theme. This was intentional as I wanted to make a couple of blankets which better suited the living room colour scheme. The African flower blanket is perfect for my daughter's room though she's normally too hot in bed to need it.

Back to the holidays...

... On Monday N seemd fine and we attempted a walk in the woods. Uh oh, mud, thick oozy mud, fortunately we set off with wellies on. Mine were given to me by hubby and as you can see pre date the current fancy patterned welly trend.

We could vaguely see the sun through the clouds.

The cloudy sun again, this time lurking behind a wonderfully wiggly tree.

Fat bird on a branch.

Sun and branches.

The top of the woods adjoin fields. A enjoyed running to the brow of the hill to see what she could see.

N by this point was sitting on a log wanting to go home.

So we did. I managed a couple of arty beech leaf photos before we left.

I then had to satisfy my photographic cravings in the garden...

...the crocuses are almost ready to flower. I checked my blog (the search function is brill for this) and last year the crocuses didn't flower till around the 25th Feb, so we're just over a week ahead this year, not as much as I thought.

Molly in the holly.

Snowdrops from below.

And again.

Hydrangea.

Skipping a day we move to earlier today. The sun was shining and it was relatively mild. I capture some sky images for the Sky365 Flickr Pool.

Wispy.

Hearty?

We went to a nearby park.


Then to the loch.

There were lots of these birds about. I didn't know what they were till I used the RSPB bird identifier form and would now say that this is just a black headed gull in its winter plumage.

The same bird after being "encouraged" onto the water by the children. The surface of the loch is like glass, giving wonderful reflections.

Ducks in a row.

A pink footed goose (I used the RSPB site to identify this too)

Lastly, a jackdaw.

Back to school tomorrow...