Easter break

My general lack of blogging has been due to the Easter break - I decided to have a totally computer-free week! We had a great time at home in Leeds.

We spent several mornings in the garden, de-turfing and digging over the front garden, which is going to be my rose garden. I must admit that Eddy did all of the hard work - and while digging the soil over to loosen it (it's very clayey) he found enough rock to build a substantial rockery in the back garden - although hard work this is good, as it will save us a fortune - I have a friend who spent £100s on rocks for her rockery.... I did the fiddly, time consuming bits, like removing the last of the ivy from the wall, cutting back and thinning out the spireas next to the drive, and weeding (in one are I had to dig up muscari bulbs and pull the grass roots out from around them, it took ages to do a really small area. We're hoping to plant some roses in the areas we got dug over this coming weekend.

As it snowed on Friday and Saturday, we spent those mostly indoors - I did lots of Pooh and Friends Calendar. I finished the bottom row the week before Easter, and did most of the top row over Easter:





We also played Carcassonne a lot - Ed bought 2 expansion packs. I have to say that at present I can't quite figure out the 'princess and dragon' expansion, there's so much to consider all at once - and haven't managed to beat him with that expansion yet (grrr). Our friend Amy came over for food on Friday - we ate a Delia potato recepie (sliced and baked in the oven with onions, milk, rosemary and veggie stock), Greek courgette balls and artichokes and peas - all very tasty! Then on Saturday my cousin Elaine and her partner Richard joined us for a curry out, and stayed over night - clearly enjoying a dog and child free evening!

On Monday it was cold, so we stayed inside and played Carcasonne some more, and I did lots more stitching, doing most of the March block on the Pooh Calendar. Then on Tuesday we went to Matlock Bath for the afternoon - we went to the mining musem, which was great fun (although I resisted the temptation to crawl through the 'mine tunnels' in the museum, Eddy later suggested I may have got stuck in one of them - they were very small (and designed for children!?!)!!). I took him back to Nottingham, and we went out for pizza - all in all a very nice day out.

But now it's back to the grindstone, work wasn't too bad yesterday - I managed to get some research done for the first time in ages - but more people will be in today, so I doubt the quiet will last for long!