I also painted underneath the pebble dash and the door and window frames, so it’s looking super smart for the first time in a long time! You can just about see that the front has been dug over, and Tom worked really hard doing that. He’s planted some wildflower seed so hopefully we’ll have a mini meadow in our front garden this summer!

I thought I’d share a few photos I took in the garden – I know I do this every year but I just love the flowers so much![/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”7313,7314,7326,7315,7325,7324,7321,7322,7320,7316,7323,7317,7318,7319″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1428958028357{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]We didn’t get out in the garden much at all this year, so really hoping that this year will be different…fingers crossed! Hope you had a super weekend too! :-)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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You’ll be pleased to hear that the kitchen is now complete! We are SO excited to be getting back to normal-ish now. But I’ve been so poorly over the last couple of weeks with this flu-like virus that’s been going around, that it’s taking longer than we hoped to get everything in the house back to where it should be. I had a few days off work, but then went back before I should have, and I’m so slow at doing anything at the moment! It’s really frustrating. Pretty much the whole of our team has the same thing (except for Tom!) so it’s been a tough week in the day job. Thank goodness for reading week next week… I’m hoping to share some photos of our new kitchen with you this weekend – yay!

In amongst all the busyness at home and in the day job, we’ve had both a birth and a death in the family over the past couple of weeks, so all in all it has been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Keith wrote a lovely post on his blog, which included some poignant words by Henry McKeating (Tom’s Grandad).

I went to Richmond in North Yorkshire with my Mum yesterday. We had a lovely day, but I felt bad for coughing the whole time! We had a good wander around, visiting lots of places we used to go when I was younger. We spent a lot of time there in the 90s, so it was lovely to go back. The river has changed so much – I used to take my fishing net and my jar with a string handle (as made by Mum) and fish for tiddlers, and back then you could cross the river here. I don’t think it would be possible now that the course has changed so much, and we reflected on the power of nature as we wandered along the banks. Here are a few shots from the day:

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We spotted this gorgeous door on our wanderings – isn’t it beautiful? I would LOVE a front door like this!

I think that just about covers everything! I’m really looking forward to feeling better and having the house back to normal I’ve got some more exciting news to share in a post later today, so look out for another post! What have you been up to?

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Last spring, we visited Wordsworth’s House in Cockermouth, Cumbria. It’s such a wonderful place to visit – the garden is simply beautiful. I was pleased to spot daffodils in there! Tom also got to play some Bach on the harpsichord! When we visited, there was an exhibition by Dianne Standen, who specialises in creative textiles – you can find out more about here work here. I hope you enjoy my gallery!

An update

I was asked by Henrietta at Kentucky Mountain Girl News to give a bit more information about Wordsworth’s House, so I’ve done a bit of research on the National Trust website! The house is where Wordsworth and his sister grew up, but it has a very long history itself – built in 1690, the house was originally home to many wealthy landowners in Cockermouth. The Wordsworths moved in in 1766, but the house actually belonged to Sir James Lowther who was the employer of Wordsworth’s father, John. Lowther very kindly allowed them to live there rent free, but when John passed away the children were sent to live with relatives.

Apparently the house narrowly avoided demolition in 1937, but local people contributed enough money to buy it and it was presented to the National Trust in 1938.

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It has been a bit of a gloomy day today – I’m just watching the news and am surprised to hear that some parts of England have had snow today! So to cheer you up, here’s a lovely photo I took a few weeks ago. This is a daffodil obdam – simply beautiful! I haven’t used any photo effects here, I was just lucky with the light

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