A 2nd greenhouse!

We decided last weekend to buy another greenhouse, this one is bigger than our other one. We're growing more veggies this year - tomatoes (cherry and normal size), cucumber, lettuce, beetroot, carrots, onions, spring onions, parsnips, strawberries, raspberries, and potatoes, plus lots of various flowers too! I love pottering about in both of our greenhouses, although we do seem to be calling the little one mine, and the bigger one Justin's... lol. It needs some more shelving, so I might just go and get the shelf thingy today from Wilkinson's.

Later on today I have to plant my second raspberry bush/cane whatever it is you call it.

Here is a pic of our smaller one... although not in our garden, this is a catalogue picture.

Dad update...
Dad is now home and doing really well, he's very pleased to be back home, finally!

Cookies n Coffee...

 

Homemade chocolate chip cookies, and a coffee in my new mug... 

The cookies were supposed to come out chewy... but the first batch, this batch, didn't... but still LOVELY!! I think the trick is to take them out the oven sooner... but how much sooner???? They are getting chewier with each batch that's coming out of the oven. I've read somewhere that you need to use melted butter to combat this problem... well that's rubbish, coz I DID use melted butter. Oh well, they taste heavenly anyway.

It's Shaun!!!!

 

I've had the weekend off work this weekend, and I have finished him!!! I love him! He was very easy to make... he may not be perfect, but who/what is?!

FREE SHAUN THE SHEEP CROCHET PATTERN!

Other news...

Dad maybe going home this week sometime. He is managing stairs, very slowly, but progressing a bit more each time. Here is a brief description of what happened... 

Dad had a major bowel resection on December 30th. Discharged from hospital on January 3rd. We get dad back home and he's VERY out of breath, and grey. I'd been told by the nurses that he was fit to go home, so who was I to say otherwise, even though I didn't agree before we left the ward. Anyway... after about 3 hours and after calling the out of hours doctors, I called an ambulance as dad was getting worse. We ended up in Resus in A&E (ER) and was there for another couple of hours before dad was taken up to Intensive Care. The following morning, I had a phone call to say that we should get to the hospital as they didn't think dad was going to make it - his blood pressure was dropping and they couldn't get it up and his kidney's had failed. When we arrived at the hospital, dad was doing better!! So dad spent two weeks in intensive care, then another couple of weeks back on the original ward, and then onto another ward as he wasn't able to go home yet, but there wasn't anything surgically/medically wrong with him then. So after another couple of weeks in that ward, he has now been in a self contained flat for about 3 weeks where he has a care team on site, and someone to help him in the morning, lunch, tea time, and bed time. They are now talking about sending dad home, once they're happy he can walk up the stairs. It's been a weird few months since Christmas... and I wouldn't want to go through all that again, and I don't think dad would either.

So... I need to finish my double bed blanket, and I'm really wanting to do a granny stripe waistcoat/vest sort of thing, but can't find a pattern...

So what have I been up to...

...in between visiting dad! Dad, by the way, is in a new place in the next street to me for a few weeks, just while "they" can work out what help he would need at home. So, apart from my daily visits to him, here's what I've been up to...

Here is Shaun the Sheep (still in the making!). I finished his ears today and sewed them on, but I've still got to make four legs yet.

 

 Here is the third baby blanket that I've made for the babies in A&E that don't survive... Crocheted in Wattle stitch.

 Below is a little Easter Chick that I crocheted for someone at work. It's a pattern in this month's Let's Get Crafting knitting and crochet magazine.

 A pink blanket, and beannie hat, for a baby due to be born at the beginning of April. The pattern for the hat was in the same magazine as the little chick.

 I added a little duck (chick pattern!) to the finished package.

I've bought some new books also. 

The one that I'm currently reading is The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes. 

I purchased three more on offer, in Sainsbury's, the offers are buy 2 for £7, which makes them £1 cheaper than if you bought ONE in Whsmiths! The other three I've bought and which are now on my "to read" list are...

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Room.

Hothouse Flower. 

Click on the links to see the books... I think I made good choices.