Month: November 2020

Sunday Postcard #14 29.11.20

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Hello! Happy Sunday. It’s a bit of a grey murky end of autumn kind of a Sunday for us here in Manchester. Not that it really matters to be honest seeing as we’re not supposed to be going out anywhere!

It’s been another busy two weeks of being busy but not actually achieving a whole lot of progress, so sorry I didn’t pop in last week. By the time my week was finished last week I was a bit tired so thought I’d make this week’s Postcard a longer one instead.

We’re all ok thankfully, although I have one teenager at home who has almost reached the end of his 2 week isolation after someone he sits close to at school tested positive for Covid. He hasn’t succumbed thankfully but is going spare because he loves to be out and about. (Others in the Postcard household would revel in the excuse to stay home). He, on the other hand, cannot wait to get back to school. It’s been hard for him poor thing.

So, what’s been going on lately Chez Postcard? Let’s see shall we?

Do you remember my trip to the Riverbank Café by the River Mersey with my friend in the last Postcard? Well before we were stuck with an isolating teen we all headed out for an afternoon stroll two weeks ago today. The sun was just about still in the sky and we enjoyed the golden light filtering through the leaves.

There was a lot of moaning and groaning about having a walk, but the hot chocolate was definitely worth the effort by the Little Postcards!

There’s a man outside my window!

Imagine my surprise when I looked out of my bedroom window to spy a man outside!! You don’t see that every day! He was giving the lovely mature tree outside our home a bit of a hair cut. I’m so glad they hadn’t come to cut it down!

What’s in the box?

We are slowing filling our new home with furniture (we left most of it behind in Gib to keep the removal costs down). Two weeks ago something I’ve been really looking forward to coming turned up. I was rather perturbed when I saw the box though! It didn’t look very ‘sofa-shaped’. I should have expected that really from IKEA!

This will now form my corner of the dining room where I can sit quietly and crochet while looking out at my new garden!

Isolation cookery

While Eldest has been at home and frustrated at being trapped indoors, he decided to have a go at cooking. I present to you vegetarian enchiladas and lemon drizzle cake. Both were a delight! I do hope he keeps this new hobby up once he’s allowed back outdoors!

Making plans for next spring…

I’ve been itching to do some gardening in my new garden but I’ve decided it’s better to just wait and see what appears in spring. I have been planting up some bulbs though. I have a few pots around the place filled with daffs, alliums, anemones and other bits and bobs so there should be some guaranteed spring colour next year.

Happy Post

I know I should really be thinking about gifts for Christmas but I went wild a few weeks ago and bought myself so bits & pieces. It’s such a treat when fun stuff comes through the door! I now have a needle punching set and a couple of new books to digest – not sure when I’ll have the time will come for me to read them or even make anything, but you never know!!

On the subject of crafty things…

At long last I have completed part 2 of the Crochet Sanctuary Christmas CAL – just 4 weeks behind! I’m loving how the dinky Christmas trees have appeared! Now on to part 3…

Podcast news

This week on Making Stitches I spoke to Emma Jones from the Vintage Sewing Box about her love of patchwork and the importance of craft for mental health. I also spoke to Lydia Wonham from The Apex Singers, a vocal group based in Manchester about their upcoming Christmas performance. They are a super group of young singers who make music which it magical. Please do give the episode a listen if you haven’t heard it yet.

The Apex Singers

You can listen to the episode here.

Thanks very much for stopping by, I hope the coming seven days are good for you.

Take care,

Lindsay x

Sunday Postcard #13 15.11.20

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Hello! Sorry for the absence, there’s been no Sunday Postcard for a few weeks. Nothing has been amiss but I have been incredibly busy sorting things at home after our house move a few weeks ago. Speaking of which, do you like this cool Lino printed card a lovely lifelong friend of mine dropped off to welcome us to our new abode? I think it’s super!

So, housewise, things are moving rather slowly. I’m rather impatient to get things sorted but because of Covid deliveries of furniture are being delayed and then postponed and pushed back a bit further because of supply issues caused by the pandemic. I completely understand why things are like this and there are many people dealing with awful situations but I would dearly love my new shelves to arrive so I can unpack all my crafty books!

On a positive note my new Ikea dining chairs arrived and are built and we are no longer sitting on my parents patio chairs to eat our meals! Thank you Mum and Dad for the loan of the chairs!

Two weeks ago there was still a fair few trees about looking splendid with their autumn leaves. Sadly since then, most of them have dropped. This gorgeous beech looked particularly lovely back then…

Bonfire night

Blimey, Bonfire Night feels like such a long time ago but it was less than two weeks ago. I got a right fright when I went to put the bins out that night for the refuse collection and I had fireworks illuminating my path briefly. By jingo they were loud though and made me jump out of my skin!

Back to the subject of autumn leaves, I was really rather fond of the back garden at our rented house, mainly because of the trees. However, lots of trees mean lots of leaves…

It took a long time and I filled two large garden wheelie bins in the process having to tidy this lot up before we hand the keys back. I guess that’s the price you have to pay for having so many trees in your garden.

We’ve had a real mixed bag of weather lately, it’s been a bit light on the sunshine and there’s been plenty of rain and wind but we made it out for a weekend walk last weekend across some fields close to our home and it was nice to get out and have some fresh air.

Late afternoon sun

I wish I could show you loads of photos of all the crafty stuff I’ve been up to over the past two weeks but there has been very little time for fun things like that and what I have done (a few rows of my Christmas blanket) didn’t seem photo worthy for now. Perhaps that will feature next week!

But I did enjoy a gorgeous morning walk on Friday with a very good friend of mine. She told me she had gone for a walk with her family last weekend and stumbled upon a fabulous coffee bar set up in a shipping container on the bank of the River Mersey.

When she suggested on Thursday night that we should head there for a wander and a coffee the following morning, I didn’t hesitate. It was super, the sun was out, and we had a fab walk and a chat, and a scrumptious coffee! And it’s all just a few miles from where we live!

Just look at that sky…

And that, I’m afraid is that for this week, although in Podcast News, a new episode of Making Stitches went out on Friday too…

Kerry Lord from Toft UK

It features a chat with the fabulously talented Kerry Lord from Toft. She has designed more than 200 crochet patterns for all manner of amigurumi creatures from Bridget the Elephant to Philippe the Gargoyle and has just released her Christmas collection which includes the cutest 3 Wise Men you could hope to see.

You can listen now by searching for Making Stitches on your favourite podcast app or following this link. I also heard this week that Making Stitches is in the top 10% of podcasts in the whole world!!! Isn’t that amazing?!!!

And that really is it for this week. I hope that wherever you are in the world, it’s been a decent one for you in spite of what we are all going through. Have a good week ahead and thank you for stopping by!

Lindsay x

Sunday Postcard #12 1.11.20

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Greetings from a rather damp and dark Manchester!

It’s been a bit wet of late, and someone rather special (who I’ll speak more of later) told me “I’m enjoying your postcards but you haven’t mentioned the rain!”. Well no, I haven’t, I’ve been focusing on the positives of our first northern autumn in over a decade. I’ve been playing to its strengths, blue skies, colourful leaves on the trees etc. I’ve been glossing over the rain.

This week though, I have to mention it. It’s been a rather miserable mid term break for the Little Postcards what with the rain, it getting darker rediculously early thanks to the clocks changing and the impending lockdown.

It’s not all been doom and gloom though…

A whole new mushroom village appeared in the front garden of our rental home literally overnight. It came up so quickly next to the one which I featured last week, it actually lifted the stones!

Boxes, boxes everywhere…

Well we’re in! On Wednesday we moved into our new ‘forever’ home. We managed to move over enough stuff with cars that we could move in. Blimey it’s been hard work, in some ways it’s been a loooong week and in other ways it’s zoomed by in a flash. We’ve been sooo sooo busy! We couldn’t have done it without the help of my parents. They are super stars.

And that special person I mentioned before popped by to drop off this lovely handmade card for us. She & her husband are people I imagined we would be seeing quite a lot of when we came over here to live back in July but this week was the first time I’ve seen them since March thanks to Covid. It was so lovely to see them both at a distance on the driveway – especially as they came bearing shortbread!

White van girl

And yesterday was our final moving day. I found myself behind the wheel of this van (far out of my comfort zone) and thanks to super friends we got the last of our things moved over. It was a very successful day – apart from managing to smash my phone (but that was the only casualty thankfully!).

Podcast news

This week I was thrilled to be able to release another episode of Making Stitches. This one features my chat with the lovely Cathy from Dear Emma Designs, you can find it by searching for Making Stitches in your favourite podcast app.

That’s all for this week, and what a week it’s been. We’ll soon see what the next 7 days have in store for us, lockdown and all.

Thanks for stopping by, and until next time, take care.

Lindsay x