New knit

Merry sporting her tres chic jumper, for cold days on the downs

I've started a new blanket for Merry, above, because her old one is falling apart. A simple knitting project, but I think she'll like it, and in a colour that won't show the dog hairs, too much anyway.

Only a month after we finished decorating(!) we finally got some pictures on the wall this weekend, spurred on by imminent lunch guests, the lovely Pyes.

Illustration Friday: Wool

This weeks illustration for Illustration Friday.

Busy week

Birthday Marmaladoo

Snowdrops papped in a Pewley Way drive

And James got creative in Steamer Trading

It's been a very busy week. So busy, I missed pottery and Illustration Friday, but well worth all the cooking and cleaning for the great weekend spent with Becky and Paul. But last week between entertaining, the cinema, general house stuff, and a lovely Valentine's meal, I managed to take in the first whiffs of spring whilst walking with Merry. Unfortunately the snowdrops I snapped above whilst crouching in someones drive, looked like they'd already been got at by the slugs.

As well as this, my lovely friend Beth came over and we made birthday marmalade for my mum, with Saville oranges being in season and all over the supermarket. It was a perfect afternoon spent chatting and cutting up orange peel, and after six hours hard at it, we'd made 10 jars. We used a recipe found on Nigella's website, and although the method is slightly unusual, boiling the whole fruit first, the result was brilliant and the newly named Marmaladoo has been a huge success, in our house anyway.

As part of my brilliant year, I've made the list I promised to do a couple of weeks ago, and I'm marking off the successes, or failures, as they happen (see my blog, right). The list is laughably unambitious and lists stuff I've never got round to doing, but being totally achievable I might actually get them done. Pilates and now marmalade making - boxes ticked! But I couldn't find a tick on blogger, so a strikethrough will have to do.

Flippin' pancakes

James made the most delicious batch of pancakes yesterday for pancake day, with the best and only topping, lemon and sugar (see carnage above). Tasty!

Lego...rabbit??

We had a lovely weekend, and Sunday afternoon was spent at my sister's to celebrate my nephew Jossie and my Mum's birthday, with delicious cake and a spectacular game of Lego Pictionary. Outstanding results all round on the Lego front, with the star of the show being Rob and Mat's superb bunny above. Truly hilarious. Happy Birthday Joss and Mum xxxx.

Lovely Merry - she makes us laugh so much.

Illustration Friday: Wheel

This week's doodle for Illustration Friday.

Windy day

As demonstrated here by Merry's ears, it was very windy on the downs today, and freezing cold. Apparently meeting people is so easy when you've got a dog, but we've not found this and have made few friends on the downs (dog walking central in Guildford) and Merry's social skills get steadily worse. This year I'm determined to get more doggy friends for her, and hope the snappiness stops when pooches approach for a sniff.

I was thinking about this and the other things I want to do as part of my brilliant year - things I've always fancied doing but never actually done. So I'm devising a check list (I love a list) of things I want to achieve and checking them off on the blog. I'm listing the mostly achievable stuff for this year like making ice cream and revisiting yoga, but making another to do list for years to come such as seeing the northern lights and becoming the second Mrs Hugh Jackman - James won't mind loosing me to the Wolverine. I've asked, it's fine.

Work in progress

Yesterday's pottery class, with some of my half finished pots. I love pottery so much but it is such a drawn out process for an impatient person like me. Hopefully worth it - you never can tell though!