This week I feel like a caterpillar who has spent months hiding in a chrysalis and is now emerging as a butterfly into this lovely Spring weather. OK it's not consistently warm but at least I don't feel like I need a sou'wester and thigh-high fishing wellys just to do the school run.
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| DD#1 and DS#4 |
Those moments when the wind drops and the sun shines and I can actually feel the warmth lift my spirits. I love being able to dress in the brighter Spring colours and even on the better days slip on my favourite comfy flip-flops! Spring styles just fit right in with my deluded vision of myself as a shorter, older, plumper version of that wispy blonde walking through fields of buttercups in the shampoo adverts tossing her hair.
Now regular readers know I am not one to ever use the words "lovely" and "walk" together. I have no consistent exercise routine and my trainers are as clean today as the day I bought them, having only been used in to walk round the shops in comfort.
But even I enjoyed a "stick walk" organised by my local church at the weekend. So-called because the children always pick up a couple of ridiculously large sticks and insist on dragging them the whole way. Or in the case of 5-year-old Grumpy insist on ME dragging them the whole way after he got bored with holding them. Well, to be honest it was better for me to carry his precious sticks than for him to swing them around blinding anyone who came within 6 feet of him!
A gang of us yomped along for an hour pointing out spring flowers, blossom and the amazing view and came back to church for a well-deserved cuppa and enough cake to more than negate the calorie loss from the short walk!
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| Grumpy with his stick and his sister |
The Spring weather also inspired me to play gardener. Now, if you could see my garden you would know it's never going to be a candidate for the Open Gardens Scheme. Unless as a way of making the visitors feel great about their own garden! It's a prime example of what a garden will look like if you neglect weeding and mowing in favour of sitting in a deckchair with a cold drink and a good book.
But in one of those shops where you can get everything for an pound I found an array of seeds which I couldn't resist. I picked up two medium sized planters, a box of compost which was easy to pop into my bag but expanded x10 when I added water at home (clever!) and seed discs to grow three types of herb and some spring onion seeds which I'm both and amazed and delighted to say are already sprouting!
For once I followed the instructions and after planting covered with cling film and popped on our bathroom windowsill as apparently the seeds need a humid environment. And our bathroom is definitely that - there are 8 people living in my house and the shower is well used! So hopefully in a couple of months I will be able to sit in my deckchair and dunk home-grown spring onions into some nice sour cream dip while I read my book and ignore the lawn-mower lurking among the weeds.
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| Teeny-tiny shoots |
I even had the roof off my car this week (don't panic - it is designed to come off!) which always makes me feel decades younger than I actually am.
I imagine that as I whizz by in a blur in my little silver Pug with its gorgeous red and black leather trim I might be mistaken for a yummy mummy not the Hag of Hertfordshire I see in the mirror in the morning. Although even that reflection will improve as soon as a get a bit of colour in my cheeks -that is if the sun can make its way past my wrinkle-busting SPF loaded face cream.
How about you dear reader? How have you been making the most of this week's milder weather? I'd love to know - please leave a comment below!