Tea anyone?

Helloooooo!!

I'm so sorry I've been away so long, life at home with The Wa's has been quite hectic and exciting lately.  I've been meaning to get around to blogging and failed miserably, today is the day though.

Jeffwa has been away a lot lately, he's back for a week's leave now which is fabulous! Cue lots of watching TV and generally lazing around together.  I'm currently persuading him to walk into the village to get some biscuits so we can have a cup of tea made in the pot cosied up with this......

Isn't it BEAUTIFUL!!!!!  I have been meaning to show you all for a while now, I haven't actually used the teapot since placing the new cosy lovingly upon it but I'll be rectifying the situation after our walk.

It was really easy to make, lots of ends to sew in though...boring!! The flowers are very clever too, you knit them inside out using a funky slip stitch pattern then cast off and voila!! A petal!!

Because we live in a married quarter it's got very bland (magnolia wood chip) decor and this brightens up my slightly dark kitchen a treat!  It cost me nothing to make either, my Uncle buys the magazine subscription for me and I used yarn from my stash.  How thrifty do I feel?

I mentioned earlier that life has been exciting and hectic and now the main purpose of this post is done I'll share my news..... I got myself a job!! Yay me!! It's perfect, part time hours and alternate Saturdays in a tiny little salon in the village next to Chez Wa, which means no travelling costs and no doggy day care needed either!!  Although I've enjoyed not working I realised that with Jeffwa going on tour in the summer I was going to go slowly insane if I had nothing to do with my time.  It's so nice to be hairdressing again, I even had a visit from one of my old clients from home (hahaha!!) 

I hadn't forgotten about you, I'm going to try and blog more I really am.  Thank you all so much for reading :-)

Happy Sunday!!!!!!!!

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Banana Muffins

How good do these look? They tasted as good too!  I hadn't done any baking for ages and as I had a bunch of bananas slowly getting blacker and blacker in my fruit bowl there was only one thing to do....make banana bread!  I'd bought some funky muffin cases earlier in the week so I trawled the internet for a banana muffin recipe and I found one here.  If you decide to use this recipe DON'T click on the link for it watch the video and write the recipe down, the link just seemed to open an advert. Could just have been me though!

It was super easy, one bowl of 'wet' and one bowl of 'dry', mix the two together and put into muffin cases. That's my kind of baking, I can't bear really involved recipes, where you end up using every bowl in your kitchen and spend the rest of the day washing up when you should be eating warm muffins straight out the oven!

I made these for the lovely ladies at Needles and Natter, I hadn't taken any baked goodies along with me for ages.  I made them the day before and after (some, not all of them) being in a tin over night the tops went really gooey and sticky and yum yum yummy!  I think they went down well.  I'm going to make chocolate Guinness cupcakes this week, it's a Nigella recipe that my wonderful friend gave me on Saturday after I ate the ones she very kindly brought to my house.  They are DELICIOUS!!!

We all got lots of needling and nattering done even with our mouths and hands full of muffins, They all thought my latest project was a bit naff all bar one lady who hinted that she would like one to match her kitchen...I'm thinking Christmas gifts already! The sign of a dedicated crafter I think.  I've completed both pieces of said tea-cosy I just have the ends of doom to contend with which I really should do before I make the cord and the flowers but we all know I won't don't we?  

With that I'm off to begin the cord and the flowers, there should be a ta-dah post soon!!!

Much love

Vickwa

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Family Time

It's been quite a busy two weeks here at Chez Wa.  Jeffwa has been on Easter leave and it's been lovely to have him around, I miss him so much when he's away.  Life is just a bit better when he's here, at least he's back  at the weekends until August when he's goes on tour for 6 months.

We had his children staying with us for a few days during the first week of the holidays which was pretty chaotic, the good thing is that the current Chez Wa is twice the size of the previous house so lots more space for 3 teenagers to run riot!  We did lots of dog walking, in various parks and woodland nearby and lots of nothing, just chilling out watching films and trashy TV.  It's such a treat for him to spend quality time with them as they live around 120 miles away from here, they all wanted to stay for another day which has NEVER happened before!

Jeffwa's oldest is studying photography at college and took some amazing action shots of Tag!  She edited the first one somehow (it's all a mystery to me!) I must say he's looking pretty gorgeous in all of them!

We treated ourselves to a flashy new camera at the weekend,  it's between an SLR and a compact apparently.  It takes amazing pictures, and the zoom is fantastic.  I let Jeffwa make the final decision as he was paying for it! See what you think as the pictures above were taken with my camera, the ones below with the new one.  We went to a country show near us yesterday so it was the perfect excuse to try it out.  I love country shows, but this one was a bit commercial for my liking.  We entered Tag into the dog show and I couldn't believe how seriously the judges take it! He won nothing, not even most handsome dog...we were robbed I think it was a fix!!  I will get a rosette buy the end of the summer, even if it's for scruffiest puppy!!!!

 Don't let the sunshine fool you, it was freeeeezing! I totally under dressed for the occasion, we almost went home to get jumpers!!

The agility display was pretty impressive, Tag and I will be doing this as soon as he's old enough.

 I'm not a huge fan of battle re-enactment type stuff, they fired their muskets, terrified Tag and after that he wouldn't go near the arena! Most unlike him as he's generally pretty cocky.

 Wee scared puppy dog with the wind in his hair!!

 Terrier racing!!!!

As you can see, we had a wonderful day out even if Tag was fairly naughty during the dog show, in the last picture I think he's having a pee in front of everyone!! He was the youngest puppy in the class though so I suppose I can't expect too much.

We left early because an enormous hail storm came down, and we both needed a large cup of tea that wasn't overpriced and under brewed.  The rest of the afternoon was spent on the sofa working on my latest project, I was able to make some progress on it as Tag was completely exhausted after his exciting day out!
It's from my latest copy of Let's Knit which came this week, I love it when it drops through my front door mat.  Always a reminder of how quickly time goes because normally I've not had time to make anything from the last issue!!

Isn't it beautiful?? I'm using the same colours because I think they look gorgeous together, it's just two square pieces with a cord threaded through the top to gather it up.  it's a pretty simple garter slip stitch pattern which I think would be fantastic for a baby blanket as it makes quite a thick fabric....I'm going to crack on with it now!!

Lots of love

Vickwa

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