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Amy and I have now used the first of her summer vouchers when we went strawberry picking early this morning. We gathered around 4lbs (plus around half a pound in our tummies!) which were brought home, wiped and swiftly turned into jam.
This year I invested in a jam thermometer which has definitely helped - last year's batch ended up very sticky and thick. This year we have a lovely oozy jam with a little added vanilla.
The lovely labels that we used for the jam are from Cath Kidston.
Well, we're in the last few days before the school summer holidays start and I'm busy trying to make sure I've got enough activities planned to keep my two lovelies busy and me sane! As we're having another staycation this year I've decided to put together a little summer holiday pack for Amy stuffed with colouring books, new pens, reading books and of course some knitting!
I've also come up with a secret weapon - Mummy's fun vouchers!
The idea being that she can exchange these with me for fun activities throughout the 6 week break. You're welcome to print some out if they're of any use to you (although obviously you provide the treats!) the pdf file is here or of course you could make your own, tailored to your children.
Hopefully the weather will be kind to us and then Toby will be happy in the garden with lego and the paddling pool and I'll sneak in a little knitting time in the sun. Hope you have a great summer wherever you are and whatever you do. I'll pop in when I'm able, see you soon x
Not much knitting going on here at the moment - most of the action is out in the garden. This week I've been picking herbs and hanging them up to dry in the sun before crumbling them and stashing them in a jar, ready to add a splash of summer to winter tomato sauces.
I've found a bulldog clip is really useful in drying them quickly rather than bunching them with string which takes longer for the stems to dry out.
Hope there's a little sunshine with you this weekend.
Over the weekend we dug up the first of our potato bags. It seems however that we were a bit previous, for although there are over 50 potatoes in there, most are the size of peas! I s'pose that's what you get for being impatient!
Still, we have another 8 bags still growing so fingers crossed for bigger ones in a month or so.
Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to enter and for all of the kind comments about the hedgehogs. The random number generator has been invaluable again and has come up with the following numbers for the 2 winners of the knitted hedgies:
190: Posted by: D. | June
30, 2009 at 10:15 PM
213: Posted by: Sally | July
01, 2009 at 12:10 AM
And the following 20 winners of patterns:
22: Posted by: Jo|June
30, 2009 at 01:20 PM
33: Posted by: Mari
| June
30, 2009 at 01:38 PM
38: Posted by: sheila | June
30, 2009 at 01:45 PM
45: Posted by: Ewa
Evans | June
30, 2009 at 02:01 PM
63: Posted by: Mama
Urchin | June
30, 2009 at 02:33 PM
84: Posted by: Anna G | June
30, 2009 at 03:40 PM
87: Posted by: adrienne | June
30, 2009 at 03:45 PM
135: Posted by: Lone
| June
30, 2009 at 06:38 PM
143: Posted by: annette
| June
30, 2009 at 07:03 PM
148: Posted by: Janet | June
30, 2009 at 07:41 PM
160: Posted by: Carolyn
| June
30, 2009 at 08:35 PM
191: Posted by: rc
| June
30, 2009 at 10:19 PM
222: Posted by: Nell
Ward | July
01, 2009 at 01:01 AM
228: Posted by: Lesley | July
01, 2009 at 02:04 AM
277: Posted by: Sheri Watson | July
01, 2009 at 01:31 PM
287: Posted by: Matilda | July
01, 2009 at 04:02 PM
319: Posted by: J Andrews | July
01, 2009 at 10:48 PM
333: Posted by: Kate | July
02, 2009 at 01:42 AM
335: Posted by: Mama
T | July
02, 2009 at 02:25 AM
341: Posted by: suesue | July
02, 2009 at 03:19 AM
Thanks again to everyone for taking the time to enter and thanks too to everyone who has bought a copy of the pattern - I'll be making the first donation to the hedgehog preservation society based on the pattern sales at the end of this week.