~*~ The Sap is Rising......~*~

It has been a truly beautiful Spring day here today- warm sunshine and the birds singing...!
Verity and I went for lunch in "Truffles" in Corbridge and had a stroll around a few of the nice shops.I bought a 25m roll of pink ricrac for £5 which is just ideal for my new Rosalie Quinlan BOM.

When we got home,I got to work outside, Clearing gutters,cleaning out stables and henhouses. Spring must be in the air because the hens have started laying and the cockerals are strutting their stuff !!

I have a date for the new house - 28th February, the recent central heating discussions have put things back a full month.

The quilt shows an example of the Gammill's handywork at the FQ's



Calum has been in London this weekend with the English Lit dept of the school, They are going to see a production of Othello staring Ewan McGregor and then visitng the Globe Theatre and the infamous "crack" at the Tate Modern.

Alex is on the Trans-Siberian railway as we speak, so is incommunicado for a week until he gets to Beijing.

Molly, the Great Dane, seems well again and all in all things seem to be coming together.

Think I might have a P&P marathon on BBC 4 tonight !!!!!

~*~ Packing up...... ~*~

I have taken a few days off work to try and get the packing well under way, to be honest, I never really settled in this house, so a lot of my things are still packed from over 2 yrs ago.
I have been packing kitchen china and emptying my dressers and plate-racks; boxes and boxes of gorgeous spongeware !!!!
In the midst of this chaos, a huge box containing 2 dinner plates arrived from the Bridgewater factory, seconds, but just ideal for everyday use.No photo cos they are in the dishwasher being prepared for tonight's tea, that is a second also, left over shepherd's pie from yesterday.

The postie brought me a beautiful cushion made from vintage fabric and backed with a piece of old Welsh blanket, the colours are lovely and soft and "lived in "





Alex has emailed from Moscow today where he is spending about a week before boarding the trans-siberian railway to Beijing, this train journey takes a week.

I had a surprise visitor this lunchtime, Ann Davison is a fellow quilter at the FQ's and has just moved to a farm in Bellingham. She was picking up some patterns she had ordered and dropped in to see me on the way home.
The new house has a nice big garden and I am taking a couple of my fave hens but there is no place for a noisy cockeral, Ann offered to rehome a trio and so picked them up today , to save me a trip. Catching them this morning was great exercise, normally you catch hens at dusk when they are dopey and sleepy.They arrived safe and sound and are getting used to their new surroundings.

~*~ 17 TODAY !! ~*~

Happy Birthday Calum, xxxxxxx M, A & V