You find me at the end of a week off, in which I have achieved many things, not least some excellent siestas and a lot of reading. I even managed to leave the house a few times, accompanied by various permutations of children.
On Sunday we insisted that all three of them accompany us to the Copped Hall Open Day – I confess to bribing them with the promise of ice cream. Copped Hall, a Georgian mansion on the site of an Elizabethan mansion on the site of a 12th century hunting lodge etc etc (history and lots of it – not too far from the Iron Age hill fort at Ambresbury Banks, so there’s even prehistory), is being restored by the Copped Hall Trust so the open days are fundraising events as well as an opportunity to recruit volunteers for the garden and so on. My Beloved loves the walled garden and we always come away with many plants. I come away with hollyhock envy as they have loads and I do not. There was indeed ice cream, luckily, and a jester with an impressive codpiece which horrified the teenagers – always a plus.
Monday saw us at Ashlyn’s Farm just outside the village with Things 2 & 3, both Timeshare Teenagers and their little boys, TT2’s partner and a friend, and my Beloved’s brother and his two boys. The Things are now – blessedly – too old for soft play so we joined them for the farm park bit. Grandthing 2, at four months, is a bit too little for the animals but Grandthing 1 (five next month and starting school) was extremely impressed. He was also very taken with the giant air cushion trampoline things. We were pleased to see the animals in situ, as the farm has a history of escapees, leading to some very odd posts on local social media – the porcupine on the A414, the capybara on the golf course which made the Daily Mail, raccoons coming in through catflaps and most recently a civet cat in a back garden.
Tuesday took us to Harlow in search of school shoes: not to Clarks as I still have childhood trauma to work through, but Sports Direct where we had to buy size 10 shoes for Thing 3. Size 10. He’s 12. I had to have a siesta to get over it.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
It’s been a while since I’ve made any of the Big 4 pattern company’s pieces but my Beloved came home with some fabric samples that were about to be discarded and sent off to landfill. One of them was a 2m length of cotton twill in navy, and being a short-legged person this was enough to make a pair of trousers. I’d had McCalls 7907 in the pile for a while as I keep meaning to make a pair of cargo pants, so I chose the slightly cropped balloon leg option as it needed less fabric. I still had to shorten the legs by 3″!
There may come a day when the prospect of constructing a fly front fills me with joy, but this was not that day. There are SO many steps to it, and so much potential for disaster – I’m still not sure I got it completely right but they’re my trousers and I don’t care. They fit really well, they’ll be great for work and I’ll have a crack at the cargo pocket version next.
Other things on the table this week have included a kimono and a Thai blouse, both from Folkwear patterns. I haven’t posed in those yet!
Other things making me happy this week
- Apple cakes and blackberry cake – the garden is fruitful!
- Tea and catching up with crafty friend yesterday
- Finishing the top half of the Visit Tokorozawa cross stitch
- Other people’s cats
Back to work on Monday, kids back to school on Wednesday – this week I am doing my level 3 Mental Health First Aid training, which will be interesting. See you on the other side!
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater: Essays on Crafting – Alanna Okun (I wish I’d written this)
Miss Percy’s Travel Guide (to Welsh Moors and Feral Dragons) – Quenby Olson
Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens
The Lost Girls – Sarah Painter
The Lost Bookshop – Evie Woods
An Utterly Impartial History of Britain, or 2000 Years of Idiots in Charge – John O’Farrell
What Kirsty did next 