Walking back to happiness...

These photo's were taken on our old coach road walk. E and her friend walking, chatting. J in shorts kicking a ball to M. It turned out to be the calm before the storm. Such is life with big children, dare I say, teenage. I think I gave my parents a run for their money at fifteen too.

Leaving father and daughter to sort out their own mess I did a sort of 'Harold Fry' yesterday afternoon. I stepped out for a sunny walk round the village and ended up having a sunny walk round three villages!

This is quite an achievement for me, on my own, since even for walks round the village it is sometimes difficult to leave the house. The weather was undoubtedly an incentive. I think it was about ten degrees with blazing sunshine. I actually smiled at the sheer pleasure of it. I set off with a thin coat on which was soon taken off, and just like Harold Fry I left the house wearing totally unsuitable footwear for a long walk. My usual every day boots have never given me any discomfort - until I walked six miles in them!

I am now sporting a huge unburst blister on the back of my heel which I am hoping will heal in time for our trip on Wednesday. E and I are setting off by train to Liverpool for a couple of days. She is a big Beatles fan so we will be doing all the related attractions.

Meanwhile M will be ferrying J to and from.... Yes you've guessed it, cricket training! Five solid days of cricket training. The smile on his face this morning says he is in cricket heaven.

Fresh air...

There's a whole lot of walking going on round here. The temperatures are ever so slightly up, the sun is out. It's very uplifting after all the snow, ice, sleet, rain and face freezing temperatures.

These photo's were taken on an old coach lane near to where we live. It is reputed to be haunted too but it's not at all spooky in the day time.

We had a glorious hour or two walking along, with the children and the dog and not an iPod or iPad in sight! There was a football but that was a small price to pay for prising Jake away from the Xbox.

Harvey was pleased to find a large puddle of course!

Simple crochet...

Sooner or later the little cogs in my brain will tell me that I need a more stimulating crochet challenge but for now I am content to triple crochet up and down (triple triple double to be more precise). It grows incredibly quickly which is surprising for quite a dense stitch.

After six colours I will be casting on for the other half of this blanket which will be constructed exactly the same way but with the colours in a different order. I can't quite see it in my mind but I think it will work out ok. Jake is checking the progress daily.

Kermit has his eye on it too.

...and yes that is actual sunshine in the second photograph. Remarkable isn't it?

Here today and gone tomorrow...

The more it
Snows-tiddley-pom
The more it
Goes-tiddley-pom
The more it
Goes-tiddley-pom
on
Snowing.

And Nobody
Knows-tiddley-pom,
How cold my
Toes-tiddley-pom
Are Growing.

It came, it came down fast, we slept, it melted, it melted fast. It is now sunny.

Four inches of snow just disappeared overnight. The weather forecast predicted all this of course, there are no surprises anymore.

...and so my crochet blanket for Jake grows.

Winter walks, step by step...

Step one: leave your perfectly good 4x4 car at home and take the just cleaned family car two miles up a dirt track with more pot holes than tarmac.

Step two: breathe in the arctic air and make pleasant remarks about the lovely trees (husband doesn't give a toss about trees because he is wearing totally inadequate footwear).

Step three: tell the dog that if he thinks you are taking your gloves off in this weather to throw a muddy stick he can think again, then throw it a hundred times anyway.

Step four: come across lovely footbridge with rope and think how nice this area will be in twenty years time when the thousands of new saplings have grown.

Step five: admire teasel heads and try and take an arty photograph of them (and fail miserably)

Step six: try taking arty photograph of afore mentioned bridge instead and blame the weather and low light levels for dull photo.

Step seven: get out of the way fast when dog finds suitably deep and muddy puddle to hurtle through.

Step eight: load stinking, shivering, soaking wet dog into boot of car and remark (with totally numb face) how lovely the walk and fresh air had been.

Correspondence from the cat...

Simplified granny hexagon...

I've had a pattern request for the colourful hexagons I was experimenting with recently. It's always nice to hear from blog readers. As a result I will now be attempting a written pattern! I have called it a simplified granny hexagon because there are quite a few variations out there and a lot of them seem to use 3dctogs or puff clusters. I have dispensed with that and used dc (us) or tr (uk) throughout. It is much easier to remember if you put it down for a week and come back to it!

Blogger for the iPad has improved considerably lately but I am still waiting patiently for more control over photo placement. Currently I can only place them after the text. I could get round this by doing multiple posts but that would be a bore to link back to, so I will just have to hope you can work out which pictures correspond to which bits of the pattern. It is fairly obvious because most rounds begin in a new colour. So here goes...

Using yarn and appropriate hook (I used DK with a 4mm hook)
I am using U.S. terminology simply because that was preferred by my lovely blog reader who requested the pattern.

1st colour: Start with a magic circle, ch 3, 11dc (U.S. terminology), slip stitch (ss) in 3rd st of initial 3ch, fasten off.

2nd colour: in any space between dc's - ch 3, dc in same space, 2dc in each space around (12 pairs of dc's) ss in top ch of initial 3 ch as before, fasten off.

3rd colour: ch3 (counts as first dc) 3dc in each space between pairs of dc's. ss as before, fasten off.

4th colour: ch3, * ss in 1st space between 3dc group, repeat from * to end, ending with a ss under the first 3ch made, ch3.

Shape hexagon as follows: corners are 3dc, 2ch, 3dc and 3dc in between each corner. Making sure that you work by placing hook under each ch3 made on previously made.

Looking at the photos should make things much clearer. I am not a professional pattern writer so don't hesitate to let me know if I have made a mistake somewhere.

If you don't like magic circle starts you can just as easily chain 3, 4 or 5 and join to make a circle, then dc into the circle 12 times.

If you already know how to join as you go this will obviously be undertaken in the final round. Be warned, it is quite fiddly with hexagons!