We had surprise visitors today ...... Malcolm's sisters! The younger one, Judith, is staying with the older one, Jennifer, in Morpeth for a few days, so they phoned this morning to say that they were going to pop up to see us. Of course this meant going out for lunch! This photo should have shown the three of them enjoying their lunch ....... but Jennifer moved, Malcolm looked as if he was crying and Judith looked awfully serious - so I have cropped the photo and instead you can enjoy the delicious food!
We had lunch at Harestanes, and as always had a walk round. Malcolm was rather taken with this log pile - I hope he doesn't decide to move our logs from the log store and pile them under the windows!
There were a lot of woodworking tools in the courtyard - these rather large axes caught my eye
When we got home, the sun came out and we sat out in the garden to have a cuppa
We were amazed to see a pair of swallows swoop through the garden - it's very early in the year for them to have arrived. Unfortunately they were much too fast for me to get a photo of them ...... but I did capture this sparrow sitting on top of the garden wall
The alchemilla mollis showed evidence of an earlier shower
The grape vine is just coming into leaf
and the herbs are growing well
I had planned to tell you about the quilt show we went to yesterday, but our surprise visitors of course changed that plan! So I'll tell you about it tomorrow, and finish with a sewing update. First, Lilly Pilly is all bonded, ready to be layered up with wadding and the applique stitched
did you spot the birds among the leaves?
Then, second, the Christmas stitchery is progressing well - I took this photo on Saturday and have actually stitched quite a bit more over the weekend (yes, I forgot to take a photo today!)