It's been a while...

... and a lot has happened. I'm not even sure why I fell off the blogging wheel, only that I think events and life caught up to me. Eh.

Where have we been, what have we been doing, and what else has been happening?

Well, let's see now. Amongst other things, I've...

Scenes From A Week...

It's been a hectic week, filled with traveling from one end of the county to the other, more paperwork than I suspect I could shake a stick at, children who have surprised me in more ways than one, and structural changes to our home which lasted all of six hours before going disastrously wrong (although that has - fingers crossed; touch wood - been remedied for the time being!). It has also been a week filled with introspective contemplation as I've hurtled from one place to another in my beloved car, 'Daniel'... but perhaps more on that when I've reached a decision one way or the other.

Perhaps.

Most importantly - to me, anyway - this week has been the realisation that my children are growing up. The Boy, who will turn 8 in November, lost his first tooth on Friday morning. It had been wobbly for almost a month, but he'd been warned that if he prematurely yanked it out 'The Tooth Fairy' would not leave him the one pound coin he'd been coveting since first discovering it was loose in its socket, so he left it as alone as any normal little boy possibly could... When it came out, unlike his sister in previous years, he did not cry, he did not wail, he did not almost faint at the sight of blood dripping down his chin (because there wasn't any... yes; The Girl was a premature yanker of loose teeth!). The loss of his first tooth marks a rite of passage though; my youngest child is no longer my baby (although he always will be...) and I may have sighed a little over this fact when he'd been safely delivered to school and I was waiting in traffic...

Within Walking Distance...

... of our home, there is a plethora of open land which, whilst undoubtedly not designed with the objective of keeping small boys and their canine companions occupied and entertained, certainly manages to do both. Right behind our house, we're very fortunate to have this...

An Iron Age hill-fort whose presence in the landscape has dominated the vast majority of my life. When I was a child, I would be taken on long dog walks up to its summit, when I was a teenager I would hike up there by myself with my own dogs in tow and now that I have a child, a teenager and a dog who (on days like yesterday) all require copious amounts of fresh air and exercise? 

Sewn-Up-Saturday & Other Stuff...

In this post I made on Wednesday, there were several items of unfinished knitting...one of which I labelled as being a Very, Very, *Very* Important Project Indeed, given that I was making a decoration for The Boy's Easter Bonnet Parade at The Village school he attends.

Well, it turned out that he was still too poorly to attend the school's parade - which I thought he might be, but didn't want to risk the chance of him not having a bonnet if he was, indeed, fit and raring to go back to school (he's distraught at not being able to go back now until April 16th... although I suspect that may have more to do with the fact that he's exhausted the contents of the box I keep for when he's got, say, an Inset Day or something of that ilk. There are apparently only so many games of Draughts and Hangman one seven year old boy is willing to play with a mother who refuses to allow either of her offspring to beat her unless they actually do so of their own accord). So, I sat up most of Wednesday night diligently working on Hopper, the lilac Easter Bunny and the daffodil that The Boy had decreed should be toted in his arms, until both were finished, sewn together and completed.

Hopper & daffodil

 I was going to post this as a Finished Object Friday yesterday, but ended up without enough time to do so given that The Offspring and I ended up in the Cotswolds over-exerting ourselves with discussions as to rhino bottoms and soil depth (we lead such fascinating lives...), so thought I'd have my very own Sewn-Up-Saturday instead.

It's my blog, and I can deviate if I want to, after all.

Originally, Hopper was intended to be sewn onto the top of The Boy's straw hat, but because he was poorly, we decided to *not* perform thread through bottom surgery and leave it free as a... toy?... ornament?... thing to be toted around until the novelty wears off? Take your pick. Because it'll end up as one of those three things, I can assure you!

Then, yesterday...