another baby beanie

this one might be for ours. or my cousin's or my friend from college's or my other friend's or my neighbour's! we'll see who has a girl first... it's slightly bigger than the others, 76 instead of 72 stitches

i finished it last night, i've never done stranded (and woven) colour work before... details on ravelry!

the weather is brilliant today! we're mostly spending it in the garden, relaxing, reading, having some cool (non alcoholic in my case) beer, getting up every now and then to do tiny amounts of pulling weeds, watering, harvesting... and to flee indoors for some shade, we're so lightskinned! factor 25 and i still feel i have to get out of the sun every half hour!

later we are planning to go to eurobaby and/or mothercare to look at some babythings. i've seen a bedside cot on the web that i want to have a look at, it's basically like a co-sleeper, but a proper cot as well. that ticks all the boxes in my book! and it's small enough to fit into our bedroom if we get rid of the bed side tables! if we get a very slim bedside lamp we could still have a reading lamp on the other side of the bed.

garden in july

gooseberries - green and hairy, just as they should be!



redcurrants



strawberry blossom, this variety is pink!



lavendar, perspective 1


lavendar, perspective 2, i think this will be part of my next moo postcard set!

baby beanie hat

i made a hat for my nephew! this is actually the 2nd, the first one was plain sage green, with no beanie topper. the pattern is by onegirl, and it's a great one (i modified it by doing stripes and adding the beanie topper)!





this is it inside out


here you can see the colour change on the wrong side.


must get some more wool and make more, this one only took me one evening, while watching TV and 'In Bruges'. I used the magic loop method. I weaved in the ends and evened out the colour change this morning on the bus, and posted it to germany at tea break...

car bootie

i went to a car boot sale and got these beauties! they are soup cups and saucers and i just love the leaf pattern... and the colour!




my idea was to plant something in them, but for the moment i have them on the window sill just to admire them. and the middle one right now holds the last flower of my anniversary bunch of flowers, a pink lilie that was only opening up when the rest of them had already given up the ghost.

these are the flowers on the day i got them!



and this was the anniversary breakfast, fruitsalad with raspberries and yoghurt, and the first redcurrants from the garden, made by me, and french toast with honey made by himself, he makes the best french toast...


hard to believe we're married over a year already!

oh, must stop writing, just got handed a delicious smelling beef and udon noodle stir fry, with some of the monster pak choi from the garden!

window sill gardening

pepper progress!
they are a lovely bright red now, there was a spanish student in the office the other day, and she couldn't believe the veggies were doing so well, she didn't think you could grow peppers or tomatoes at all in ireland... this is an east facing window, the sun is gone after one o'clock, so i'd say you could work miracles with a south facing window!

coralicious, again...

remember my post about my current favourite nail polish? i am in good company, marian keyes herself writes about it in her newsletter! it is a a great great colour of course... it'll save your sanity on a ridiculously torrential july day like this (yes. i am wearing sandals. foolish, i know. but it wasn't raining when i left the house! and it is july!)
PS the image of it on the rimmel website really doesn't do it justice.

turquoise ring

p got me this turquoise ring in sardinia, isn't it gorgeous? it's exactly the colour of the water there...

baby update

the baby's kicking away now, it's the most exciting thing, i think i'd been feeling movements since about week 18, but i wasn't sure if that's what they were. But in Sardinia, lying on a deckchair overlooking the sea, i was looking down at my belly and i could feel and see a kick, that's when i knew for sure what i'd been feeling! the same evening, as we were watching a Euro2008 match, i felt strong kicks again and finally p got to feel them as well, and he could see them. the surprise and astonishment in his face were priceless! we've got a nickname for the little one as well now, 'the pod' or 'poldi', after one of the soccer players. of course p thinks now it's a boy cos it seems to like football!

when in germany we went for a 3d/4d ultrasound, 'rip of ireland' shows, in ireland it would cost about 200€, in germany it was 40€! a fifth of the price! it was great to see the pod squirming about rubbing its nose and kicking. it was a little camera shy though, mostly turning away.

my mum and dad seem so happy about it, too. my mum's very quiet and wouldn't talk about feelings or anything much, but i could see the smile on her face, and she looked so happy when she saw and felt the kicks! and she keeps saying things about when she was pregnant with me and how lovely it was when she felt the first kicks.

my window sill at work

my colleague looked after my plants very well while i was on hol's! the windows in the office get quite a bit of sun in the morning, and are ideal for growing tomatoes and chilis. this year i have two tomato plants, one pepper plant and one courgette (which is in a very small pot but i think it wouldn't survive being transplanted now, in full bloom and fruit).


see the little baby courgettes?


and there's a flower


i've tied everything up with parcel string



the railing is handy, this tomato plant is supported by it all along the width of the window.


the first ripe tomato. i heard you have to keep one red tomato on the plant at all times then the other ripen faster! so as tempting as it is i won't pick this one just yet.


and these are the peppers, they are about the size of small plants. i don't know what size they'll eventually be, i got the seedling from another colleague, but i think they might be 'mini peppers'.

market in alghero

shoppers eying up the produce... the look like they are concentrating hard, don't they?





i thought these were nuts at first


but then i looked closer! can you see what's coming through the netting of the middle sack?

if only this market was around the corner from me, the indoor market would be a great idea for ireland. p says they used to have them here actually, until the supermarkets arrived.

oh, the fruit were just so much better in italy! and cheaper!

our garden in june

the pak choi went a bit mad while we were away, i think the first one is ready to be harvested! the choked broccoli plants will be grateful i bet...


lilies in full bloom


broad beans


lemon verbena, mint and marigolds


hesitantly blushing redcurrants...

Coralicious

this is rimmel 60 seconds in 'coralicious' on the nails of my rather wrinkly (recovering from sunburn) toes, i just love it. i think it darkened a bit in the two weeks it's been on, when i first put it on i found it nearly too madly orangy red! it's a great vibrant colour, and it was perfect with my current favourite coral red t-shirts on holidays, and it went well with the tiny coral pieces that were being washed up at the beach in sardinia!

oh, the shoes are my beloved birkenstocks which are ever so comfortable and bring out the vibrant colour even more. ok. who am i kidding. birkenstocks aren't stylish, not even in combination with coralicious toenails

my mum's garden

Gallura, Sardegna

happy pigs...




turtles!






that's corsica you see there in the distance


...and some more pictures of beaches on a particularly windy day