...two weeks in Spring

• A weekend walk, really early in the morning, the sun shining through new leaves and bluebells beginning to flower.

• Figuring out where the macro setting on my new camera is, and spending a happy half hour absorbed by the buds and blossoms in the back garden.

• A bittersweet triumph of nature over humankind. An ugly, battered, metal box in the car park at work, half full of rotting cigarette butts was home for a few weeks to a family of robins. Such clever little birds, they found a dark, dry, sheltered corner in amongst the man-made detritus, and built a cosy moss-lined nest, hidden from all but the very closest inspections (I had to use the flash setting on my phone in order to get the pictures below). We discovered they were there when Father Robin flew out into the startled face of a solitary smoker one Monday morning. After this we were careful to give them a wide berth, tip-toeing past and casting surreptitious sideways glances so as not to disturb them further. There were serious discussions about being willing to stand in front of the bulldozers if our moving date came before the babies had left the nest. Fortunately the moving date has been pushed back until mid-June, and the feathered family has now flown, hopefully to enjoy the luxury of more salubrious surroundings in the nearby bushes and trees.    

• A second weekend walk after a week of increasingly warm weather, and a veritable explosion of blossom has taken place, with swathes of bluebells carpeting the woods as far as the eye can see. 

• I spent the Bank Holiday afternoon working on a card I've been commissioned to make in celebration of a friend of a friend's Civil Partnership at the end of May. It's very much a work-in-progress, and vehicles are clearly not my strong suit, but with one lady being a bus driver and the other being a singer, a festive vintage bus had to feature somehow. It needs a lot more work, and there have already been moments where I've wanted to scrap it and start again, but I'm pushing myself to continue working outside my comfort zone and just play with the materials. Watch this space.

•  The clematis is officially back in bloom, forming a Kardashian-worthy wall of flowers outside the back door.

• I need some more babies to arrive in my life so that I will have an excuse to make this bonnet. I might just have to make several in optimistic anticipation of future babies. So very sweet!