Hope you are all enjoying the holidays, Big Sister has been off for over a week now and Little Sister for five days and we have been blessed with gorgeous summery weather. Most days have been spent on the beach, in fact this weekend we seem to have spent just a couple of hours at home. It feels really as if the summer has arrived (I am writing this of course with fingers crossed).
We are now all sporting salt encrusted hair that feels like cardboard because we've swam so much in the sea, our skin feels like sandpaper and there is that feeling of sand remaining between our toes even after umpteen showers. So life has been good this week, there is a bag permanently packed in the hall - full of towels, swimming costumes, books etc - just in case the sun shines and we're all getting use to the change in routine.
I love being able to step down a gear but there are times when my fingers get twitchy, when I need to know that there is a little project on the go that I can turn to when I have some spare time. So this week I have been sitting in front of the sewing machine early in the mornings and later in the evenings to make some lavender sachets for my Etsy shop.
I have been using an assortment of floral fabrics to create little bundles and I'm pleased with the results.
In fact there are more flowers on these sachets than there are in my garden at the moment! The garden seems a little tired, flagging a bit now - it always starts so early and seems to keep anything back for later in the season, it almost gets carried away with itself!
In our front garden however, the place is a buzzing with bees on our lavender. The opening of the front door is accompanied by the sound of bees busy buzzing and humming from one stalk to another. As we're not going away this summer the thought has crossed our minds that we should just stand in the front garden, close our eyes, listen to those bees, smell the lavender and imagine ourselves somewhere else. (we did this in the sea the other day, Big Sister and I turned our backs to the beach, faced out to a beautiful blue sea looked at the sailing boats and imagined ourselves abroad, she was in Italy and I was in France).
I've also added another birdhouse to my little shop, very floral and summery. I wouldn't mind a few of these pink feathery creatures flying around my garden.
Plenty of butterflies around though this year, that's if our cats don't see them first - it seems to be the only exercise they're getting at the moment. Apart from the daily run from one end of the garden to the other when they know it's meal time those two cats are just a hive of inactivity.
Before I completely suffer from meltdown I must thank some lovely bloggers who have recently nominated me for some awards. Thank you so much, I have been overwhelmed by the number of wonderful comments I have been receiving and feel very naughty that I haven't thanked you all sooner.
You MUST know by now that I never choose people to pass these awards on to as that would be too hard to do as I enjoy reading all your blogs so much. so if you're reading this now please consider yourself nominated and please if you can spare the time go and pay a visit to the lovely bloggers who passed on an award to me, all their blogs are great:
Alison at Born to Read and Knit blog - thank you Alison!
Anna at All Things Lovely - and if you're passing her hometown soon please go and buy a coffee and cake for me in her soon to be opened, gorgeous new cafe
Heid at Foxgloves, Fabric and Folly - Heidi posts the most gorgeous photos and I've been enjoying her Pink Saturday collections in particular
Lisa at Knitty, Vintage and Rosy blog, a blog that is relatively new to me but one that I always enjoy visiting.
Alison at Vintage Amethyst who has a great new online store to visit too.
Janice at Jan's Jabber, another relatively new read for me and one that I enjoy visiting.
Anyway thanks again to all of you. The sun is shining through the trees and I'm out into the garden to shake the sand from the beach towels, make some sandwiches and try and rouse a sleeping teenager.