Feeling ridiculously happy about getting out of the house

 A friend gave us some free tickets to visit Wrest Park, an English Heritage garden (and house, but house closed for lockdown) some way south of us.  It seemed a fairly safe outing so despite poor weather being predicted, we headed off there this morning. We were both a bit like kids let out of school, feeling ridiculously happy just to see new places and be on the road and out of our own town.  The garden itself was predictably pretty bare at this time of year, but how lovely to look across vistas instead of town streets, and it was so quiet, and we saw loads of birds down by the river. It wasn't terribly warm, but the rain held off until the drive home.  We walked around for about an hour and a half, occasionally just sitting and taking it in, and enjoying a cup of tea from an outdoor kiosk.

The Long Water, with posing swan

We also made an effort on Easter to break out of our rut, and went over to an attractive village called Finedon, just to have a little walk around the town and the green.  I was delighted to find an extensive yarn bombing installation on the green, with multiple trees being decorated with a mixture of knitting and crochet. It appears several local groups and individuals have put a lot of work in during lockdown to make it all.

In my own knitting, I've finished a little hat and bootie set for my Japanese teacher.

I've started knitting her a bunny as well, and while I was at it, decided to run up a quick baby quilt.  I'm going to back it with an IKEA printed pink fleece blanket that I bought years ago for this very purpose but never got round to using. She's supposed to be having a little girl, thus the pink theme. The fabric is by Tilda, which I got in a sale a few years ago. I'm hoping it will appeal to her Japanese sensibilities, being a bit understated.

I've been on a bit of a sewing kick this week.  I made some felt daffodils to celebrate spring/Easter.

I hacked the Tumbleweed bag pattern that I made a few weeks ago, simplifying it to turn it into a single-compartment doctor's bag. In an experiment, I made my own rectangle bag frames from coat hangers to see if it was do-able.  It is definitely do-able, but the coat hanger wire doesn't feel as rigid as the purchased frame did. I feel like I have to be a bit delicate with opening and closing the bag, because if I am too rough then it might bend the wire.  But if you could find sturdier metal wire, it would be money saving to make your own frames.

I made a wired hairband to match the vintage dress I made a few weeks ago.  I used garden wire for this, on advice received online, but it feels a bit bulky. In this case, I could do with thinner wire!

I am conscious that the magnolia blossom may not be around for long (particularly as we had some bizarre snow showers at Easter) so I went out and snapped some more pictures of it, so pretty.

Work has continued to be tedious, but could be looking up.  I've been asked to help train someone who is learning how to do the kind of work I actually like doing (they have been promoted from a lower grade).  A trainer will manage the actual training, but I will be checking the trainee's actual casework and feeding back to her.  I'm kind of looking forward to it as I've not done any checking before so it will be something different, and it's the kind of work I like doing myself. It will go on for 10 weeks and will probably start in a few weeks. I hope I can do a good job and don't make any embarassing mistakes.  

I've started looking for videos on Youtube about mental preparation for retirement and watching them.  It's difficult as there is only about one of those videos to every 20 videos on financial planning. I was thrilled to get an email recently that AQS is hoping to go ahead with four quilt shows in 2022, including Paducah which is the show I had always planned to visit again once I retired. I hope it is possible for them to put the show on, and for me to go, but who knows.  The world would have to change a lot for it to be safe, because it will probably be an absolute mob scene of show-starved quilters desperate to buy all the things.  I saw a headline predicting that all travel is going to be really expensive once we can do it again, due to the economic impact of the pandemic. At the moment, I am just very excited to have a hair appointment for this coming week, with salons re-opening on Monday.