Annie doll.

Recently a friend's son and daughter in law had their first baby.

I always used to send exquisite French clothing to new babies....when we lived in France.

I wanted to find something a bit different, and knew that Sarah of the As Lilies Sewing blog, made these beautiful traditional rag dolls.

So, here is Annie, who made the long journey from Missouri to England, got kidnapped on the way by Customs and Excise, ransomed and finally arrived at my home!

Isn't she sweet?

I think the new baby's family will love her.

I think I'd quite like to play with her myself.

Update on my husband, with again many thanks for the messages of support.

He has now transferred to a very restful Nursing home for a few days post-op care.

Hospital report.

I'm really happy to report that my husband came through surgery yesterday, and when I visited in the evening he was cheerful, despite being anchored by various monitors and drips etc.

The care shown to him is amazing, and there seems to be no end of form filling, checking and talking.

We have had so much prayer support and are very grateful.

Hopefully he will be transferred to post-op care this weekend.

Thank you so much for your many messages of support.

Busy.

From Wednesday this week I will be off line for a few days.

My husband is going into Hospital for an operation,

followed by a week's Respite care.

I'll keep in touch as much as possible.

The newest knitting project

Never mind knitting little hats for Innocent smoothie bottles.

This is the latest knitting need reported in today's Telegraph..

An Australian penguin conservation group has put the call out to knitters across the world to make pullovers to help penguins recover from oil spills.

The Penguin Foundation says the jumpers help the creatures to keep warm and prevent them from trying to wipe the oil off with their beaks.

“It is a continuing problem,” said Lyn Blom, a regular penguin knitter who lives on the island.

“If somebody puts oil into the sea ... a little penguin swimming along pops up to the surface and finds out he has come up in a circle of yukky stuff.

He loses all of his waterproofness. He gets very very cold... Normally he has a little insulating doona inside his feathers

Just imagine!

My husband wonders how you get a jumper onto a penguin? ("Wings up, head through this hole, wriggle in, there you are!")

Laura Ashley dresses.

In the mail this week came a 'bouquet'. A bouquet of fabric.

My daughter, who is moving house shortly, sent me her collection of Laura Ashley dresses, all ten of them,  to look after/do something with/sell on Ebay. 

Those 80s designs were just so pretty, and I hate to part with them, simply because the fabric is so lovely. But neither could I bear to cut them up.

I think there comes an age, or a career, when Laura Ashley doesn't quite fit the bill.

I remember my daughter's first Ball dress, a full length LA dress in blues. She looked so lovely in it.

They don't make dresses any more....well, not of this sort.

I offered one to my daughter in law, but she says she is 'too grown up now'!

Grandchildren aren't keen on this type of frock anymore, in fact, who wears frocks??

I have a sneaking longing to be young and floaty again.

Grandma's recipes.

I was having a sort-out of some books recently, and rediscovered this very ordinary looking little note book.

I don't think I've ever really spent time reading it.

It was my Grandmother's recipe book. It's full of recipes, some written during the war, some later, and many of them have a little notation as to the person from whom she got the recipe.

It's well used, slightly marked on the pages, but it brings back memories of cooking with Grandma.

This is a little water colour of Grandma. What a lovely person she was. The kitchen was her domain and being a Lancashire lady, she was a splendid cook. 

 On this page you can see a recipe for 'War Cake'.

I ought to try it, though it sounds a bit solid. I'm surprised that they would have 6 oz margarine to use.

( click the photo to enlarge)

One recipe was from 'Aunt Lizzie', another from Mrs Hall.

 I remember the pudding called Puzzle pudding, in fact I can almost taste it! Grandma noted that ginger and syrup 'made a nice change', and that's how we preferred it.

I'd love to try Mrs B's Roly Poly pudding.

Simple food, but filling and warming, which was exactly what was needed in those hard years.

I shall spend more time with this little book, it's quite a legacy.

Fruit trees

Here is my mini-orchard. One tree in each pot, with a fourth already growing from last year. That one is a Crab apple.

Angela, to answer your query, a Crab apple is a pollinator. The RHS site says that even if you only have one apple tree you can pollinate it with a Crab apple. I love the thought of some Spring blossom. There won't be any fruit on these patio trees for at least a couple of years, but I'm hoping for a pretty display of petals.

And here is a somewhat unweeded corner of the garden, but the joy of the daffodils negates the weeds!

Below is the photo that originally inspired my order of the fruit trees.

This was from an article in the Daily Telegraph Garden section,

written on the joys of having patio trees.

Will mine look like that one day?

Thank you Connie.

This is a bouquet for Connie of Living Beautifully.

She has been helping me with suggestions and has changed the size of the header already.

Thank you Connie, Kathy,  and the many others who have come up with clever ideas.

I have some trees to plant this morning. Three small patio fruit trees arrived this week, and they are all going in big pots. The garden isn't big enough to have an orchard, but I can have a mini one in pots, and enjoy the blossom.

I have an Apricot, a Pear and a Red Apple, and apparently they will all bear fruit eventually.

The sun is breaking through the mist, so off to the garden.

Thanks for all the advice on my blog page.

I have taken off the background as it didn't fit properly.

I'd like another one but have found that nothing fits.

I made the mistake of playing with the template and couldn't find a way back to the original.

The header is big, but if I reduce the size it doesn't stay in the centre.

I shouldn't play with things that I don't understand.

Oh dear............

Please would someone tell me how to get

my blog page back to normal?

It's a mess.

Camellias etc.

When I went to church on Sunday I had to stop and take a quick photo of the beautiful range of Camellias that are just starting to flower in the grounds.

Pink ones jostle with white, red beginning to open behind. With the sun shining, and daffodils everywhere, it looked such a happy picture.

Just an update on the bedroom redecoration.

My son came to move furniture, hang shelves and curtain rails. It's such a blessing to have a willing and strong helper!

  We are almost done.

I have to hang some of our lovely water colours and then the room will look lived in again.

I am so pleased with the gentle colour of the carpet.

And through the window you might spot one of our Camellias coming into flower.

(click to take a closer look)

It was good to be home last night and sleeping in our own beds!

Nearly there.

Half way through the redecoration.

The Anaglypta came off in one day, and we were happy to see it go.

Now with two coats of a lovely luminous Lily White paint, the room is beginning to look fresher and brighter. I like the Dulux paints, particularly the white series. They are soft versions of coloured whites...if that's possible!

The small washroom off the bedroom was the most awful bright pink.

I think this is better.

On Monday the carpet fitters come.
The dull grey carpet will be replaced with a pretty pale taupe carpet with the lovely name of 'Cloudy Bay'

And we can come home.

Goodbye Anaglypta.

Tomorrow we decamp to a nearby small hotel, and Les the decorator moves in.

This time it's bedroom 1.

We have almost got to the end of the dreaded Anaglypta wallpaper, with which the entire house was papered....Hall, bathrooms, kitchen, sitting room, bedrooms...no end to the stuff, and all painted in different colours. It was a popular wallcovering back in the 70s and 80s. and I think had been on our walls for ever, just painted over every year.

My son is coming tomorrow morning to move the last of the furniture, and then Les has a week to finish before a new carpet goes down.

How nice it will be to, as all the decorating programmes put it, 'put my own stamp' on the house.

See you next week, maybe with photos.