What We Have Been Up To

We've been up to all sorts of things over the last few days....and also not a lot at all.

Last weekend was rather wintry, considering it isn't even winter as yet.  We stayed inside and didn't do very much at all.

What I did do, shock horror, was read a book!  Nothing intellectual or long, rather another of the vintage Maigret detective stories.  I have another three on the pile waiting to be read.

Monday saw our first frost, although it was rather light.  We had another one on Tuesday, and there are more forecast for next week.

 

Mick picked the last of the egg plants, so all the summer veges have now been removed, other than a couple of mini tomatoes tucked away in pots.

We are still picking a good batch of raspberries every second day.  They are being covered for frost when necessary, as there are still a lot of berries coming on.  We can't believe how many we are getting considering the summer we had.  The freezer is rather full.

The weather was glorious today, so we tackled some tidying up in the garden.  Our dahlias have grown enormous this year, so we thought it was time to dig up the tubers to divide for next year.  So many plants were being smothered in this garden.  The tubers from these, and another couple in a separate garden filled three beer cartons.  Plenty to give away next spring.

That looks better, although still messy.  We'll leave it like this until the start of spring, when we will give it a good tidy up ready for the new season. At least you can now see the little fairy door with its pixie and elf.

The bonus was a very full vase of flowers from the removed plants.

We've done two lots of baking, firstly rock cakes and then cherry biscuits.  I don't think we have ever baked so much.  They are all tried and true recipes, but firsts for Mick, who has never really baked before.  We are definitely enjoying the results.

We haven't done a great deal of walking, but have still been out a couple of times.

On Wednesday Mick came and met me for lunch and we went for a walk along the river.

There had been a huge fog in the morning, which was still lingering, making everything rather picturesque.

Yesterday we went for quite a long walk, about 8 kms, and met this handsome Clydesdale horse.  He only looks small because I was on a slight embankment.  He came up for a scratch, but there was a sign on the fence not to feed or touch the horses, so we both missed out.

On the sewing front, this morning I made the latest Blockheads 3 block.  It is 8 inches and came together rather well.  I do love my Ultimate Flying Geese Tool.

I then bit the bullet and completed the Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for this month.  

I'm still not loving making them, but at least I didn't leave them till the end of the month this time.

Meanwhile, Mick is working on the restoration of Marilyn, his Rickman Honda motorcycle.  He had to order quite a few parts online and they are now gradually arriving.  He has the motor completely pulled apart and has started to install the replacement parts.

He even had to go into work today.  He has been semi retired since the start of the year, but there hasn't been much of the semi since COVID-19, which he hasn't minded.  It was a bit sad getting out the work clothes.

This afternoon the Prime Minister announced some relaxing of the COVID-19 restrictions, albeit subject to the State Premiers making the decisions for individual states.  It will be interesting to see what we will be allowed to do, and when the changes come into place.  We do hope we can get out and about a bit more.

So that about wraps it up for now.

Tonight is Friday Night With Friends.  Last week I joined in, but achieved very little - just two EPP seams. I stitched the first and realised I had the pieces back to front, so had to start again.  Then I started the crochet shawl, but as I didn't have the pattern in my head at that stage it wasn't ideal to work on while also watching TV.

Hopefully, I will be a bit more productive tonight, although I still don't know what I will be working on.  I'm sure I'll find something.