Now here is a funny thing. I didn’t realise that I had so many little bowls all over the house. Okay not that many but almost one in every room. Was it in the 1990’s that pot pouri was all the rage?

Anyway, this one I love and it has a nice story behind it.

It was inspired by the film ‘Somethings Gotta Give’ where Diane Keaton’s character collects white pebbles from a beach on Long Island and puts them in bowls all over the house. My sister and her clan collected lots for me when they went to Filey beach shortly after we’d all seen the film and I’d said how lovely the idea was. The wonderful purple glazed bowl was from Sarah Raven they have similar ones over here.

Here is another one. A Christmas leftover.

More purple.

And another favourite which contains shells collected from many beaches a dish full of stories.

I simply can’t resist collecting things.

A few details – (lots of family this week and I made it into two shots thanks to the self timer) cozy slippers,  at the park with milkshakes,  at Nandos,  bed time,  at my sisters for holiday discussion,  breakfast and my older niece again, this time baking buns at her Nanas.

Not a first bloom as in the first in the garden but the first little vase of flowers for this year of Bloom 2.0.

This beautiful stem is from Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’, a witch hazel and a glorious plant to have in the garden at this time of year. In fact it has been blooming since early January. I thought the snow might ruin the blooms but they have kept going.

It was about time I cut a stem or two to start the flowers off for the year. So there we go, a little flower in the bleak months.

I bet you’d find a gem out there too. Go have a look.

About six months ago Gav and I sat my younger niece down in front of the t.v and made her watch Star Wars starting at episode four (Don’t get me started on those first three films……)

She wasn’t too keen but we persevered and the other day we made it to the end of episode six at which point she declared, after being quite sad that Darth died, that she would like to watch them all again. I’d like to think she really did enjoy them but she’s a wylie young thing and knows what to say to make her aunt happy.

So what has all this got to do with a hair style I hear you cry.

The above photo is my (feeble) attempt at Princess Leia’s hairstyle in ‘Empire’. I need to practice and I’ve told her she needs to grow about another foot of hair.

But even if I can’t recreate a 1980’s films hair style I have sown the seed for  the love of Luke and Leia and Han and their struggles to save the universe.

It’s almost a year since I made any progress on my first quilt. How time flies. Since I picked all the pieces up again I’ve been struggling with this project wondering if I can really be bothered to finish it, whether it will work out, whether it will look okay.

After finishing sewing all my squares together I was short some of the patterns to so I winged it and added a two rows of the same pattern instead of squares. Then when I grabbed the material for the backing it was too small as well so off I went to the fabric shop to buy more but the width of the white material wasn’t wide enough either so I bought a white double sheet instead.

However, my desire to finish this thing seems greater than my little setbacks so onward I went ironing seems and tidying loose threads ready for the next phase.

And here I am. At last the layers are safety pinned together and I am ready to try feed those layers through the machine to create a quilt. I might work, it might not but hey, there is a fan of the patchy quilt already…

Okay, more…..

A few details – pancakes, snow covered car, blurry valentine pudding, changing batteries in his GPS, cutting cake, a beautiful day in the garden.

A couple more layouts to add to the stack of California stories.

I was giddy, giddy I tell you about what happened in this story. We were at the Computer Science Museum in Palo Alto and while we were having lunch and surfing the internet – like you do while visiting museums – up popped Google’s WiFi connection. Wow. I was so pleased about this that I had to snap a photo.

Not sure I like how the artsy layout turned out. I used white paint through a Crafters Workshop stencil. But I do like the story, the reflection of my hand as I took the shot of the screen even the dust on the computer screen. Those are the little things that make this kind of layout so worthwhile and memorable.

I finished my first novel on the Kindle. It feels like it should be a hallelujah you know, I am now in love with the Kindle and ready to forsake real books forever.

But no, that is not how I feel. I still don’t like the little machine much and the only reason I finished the book – it was Linger by Maggie Stiefvater – was because I had to know what happened.

As far as the book went I really enjoyed it. Yes, it is more teen angst and supernatural stuff but I liked the new characters and thought it was a good middle book. I am going to wait until our trip up to Northumberland in March to see if I can find the final instalment of this series in Barter Books.

It is a tradition I have followed for as long as I can remember. When I was a child and when I grew up Shrove Tuesday means pancakes. Even a couple of years ago when Gav and I forgot to make them on the day we had them on the Wednesday. Not strictly correct but we were not going to miss that treat!

And this year was no exception.

And the days just keep on coming.

A few details – a smattering of snow,  Buddy and his stick,  popcorn,  architecture in the park,  the teapot,  my niece and a crafty valentine canvas we made and snowdrops.