A Taste of Summer

Hello, are you all enjoying this gorgeous Summer sunshine? It's been rather warm here in Bucks to say the least but I'm not complaining, it beats wet and windy any day!

We have been making the most of the gorgeous weather and have launched ourselves into Summer mode with a vengeance.

On Saturday we enjoyed a stroll around the farmers market in Old Beaconsfield followed by a rather hot pick your own excursion. We picked a tonne of of strawberries and a massive punnet of cherries. Alex lived up to his reputation as the monkey of the family. I have never seen such a small boy climb so fast and high up a cherry tree. He has always been a bit of a climber to say the least. At 18 months he could reach the top of the largest of climbing frames whilst I would be in a state of panic waiting to catch him should he fall.

Pick your own is always followed by a jam making session and this year was no exception. Daisy likes to be in charge of jam. She did a great job with the strawberry jam whilst I made a small batch of cherry jam.

You realise the success of the jam is all in the stirring so I was informed!

Bubbling away.

The end result! Some of the jam will be given to the teachers as an end of year present. I suppose it makes a change from chocolates or smellies!

The sunshine has allowed us plenty of playtime out in the garden. We have pretty much eaten all our meals outside for the past week.

Alex enjoying a swing in the sunshine.

Daisy and Alex scaled up onto the roof of the playhouse so that they could see the puppies in the next door garden. The pups are 6 weeks old now and have been moved to their outside kennel until they go to their new homes in a couple of weeks time. They are black labs and are so sweet. Daisy and Alex spent about an hour around next door playing with them and then spent another hour watching them from their lofty spot!

The roses are still looking pretty good, I especially love the little pink ones that are slowly climbing up the remaining trunk of our old cherry tree that we had to chop down last Summer. Pretty aren't they?

The runners are starting to grow rapidly and the tomatoes are looking promising.

Great excitement at the weekend, we had our very first crop of new potatoes. They were lovely with lots of butter, mint and sea salt.



We have had a fair few strawberries too, so all looking good on the grow your own front.




Summer wouldn't be Summer without a sports day or two. Here is Alex throwing the foam javelin last Monday. He had a great afternoon and was very excited about the whole affair. I wish I could remember sports day that fondly! Daisy's sports day is next Monday.




And finally a picture of the ginger goddess of the catty world just because she's worth it!





I'm really hoping this sunny weather continues into the weekend as we are camping out at school on Saturday night. I have only every spent two nights in a tent in the whole of my 41 years and am having mixed feelings about it. I guess I can always sneak home if the weather is bad or I hate it that much.

Haven't done much crocheting until yesterday due to decorating and the like, but I have churned out a good few squares over the last two days. I will finish my granny square blanket even if it kills me. I also have a dress to make for Daisy, my kiss cushion to sew, a union jack cushion to complete, two cross stitches to get on with. I am the official queen of WIP. Too much thinking/talking and not enough doing as Mr P likes to point out on occasion. He is definitely a doer and get things done sort.

Have a lovely sunny Summer week.

Alison

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