sweet as apple pie

Weather-wise today was a rather miserable start to the month of June, with interminable rain pouring down from dawn until dusk. We also had no car today, as it was in for its MOT (thankfully it passed!) so we were all pretty much house-bound, only braving the rain to pop to the market to buy some delicious sun-dried tomato bread

followed by a quick trip to the library, where I was particularly pleased to pick up the 'Vintage Knitwear' book I had my eye on last time I went to the V&A, but resisted the temptation to buy at the time.

Whilst the girls had a look through the books they had chosen, I wrote a couple of postcards for this intriguing little group that I have just joined where you exchange postcards with strangers all over the world. I'm starting off with sending two to see what happens, although the addresses I was allocated are a little disappointing- France and Belgium, I was hoping for somewhere a bit more exotic. I do hope I receive some back soon- how jolly exciting!


Much of the day was then spent lazily watching films with the littlies, whilst knitting up this fabulous, and slightly mad-looking monkey as a gift for a friend's baby. I loosely based it on this pattern, but making it half the size, mostly by just halving the figures and decreasing on every row, instead of alternate rows. I also made the arms, legs and mouth using 'i-cord' instead of knitting it as a strip and also making him a little tail, also from'i-cord'.


I then got on with an uncharacteristic amount of baking, making an admittedly rather rustic-looking, but scrummy nonetheless, apple pie for our tea


and this enormous batch of cheese straws for my colleagues, as I'm going into work tomorrow for a leaving lunch and these snacks proved very popular when I brought them into work a few months' back. That's if there are any left by tomorrow... I do keep having to check that they're OK......


PS, as it's the first day of the month, I did say I was going to take an 'aerial' view of the garden to compare how much it's come on since last month. However, as it was such a horrid day, I though I would postpone this until tomorrow. Let's hope the weather is a bit cheerier!