July 5th - A bit of this and that....

Hello! 

I hope this day finds you happy and smiley.  Thank you for stopping by to visit, your little page views and comments are greatly loved and appreciated.   

I've been far too absent of late *again* and I fear the black cloud has been following me around far too much.  It's a devil of a thing that black cloud.  This morning, after a lovely 4th of July with friends I have decided to turn my back on that  wicked black cloud and look for the smiles and sunshine in my day.

A quick tidy up after yesterday's festivities were in order this morning.

My lovely new enamel pot and bowl of apples had to be returned to the table after being replace by hot dogs, fruit salad, mac cheese and cake for yesterday's little party.

 Then I popped outside to see if there were any green beans ready for picking. Just a few, which were devoured by our resident G-Pig.  There was a little surprise however, a delicious slug free strawberry!  Of course the photo has decided to load upside down, as you do.

 On further inspection, a little gathering of slug free strawberries were picked.

 Back to the kitchen to rescue my first loaf bread from this recipe.  It's perfect!!! I'm smiling from ear to ear. I have another in the oven as I type.  I've finally found bread that doesn't taste like cotton wool.  The one thing I miss from home is good tasting bread (and sausage rolls, but don't get me started on how much I miss those).  The kind of shop bought sliced bread that's only good for a day or two, but that first day is delicious. So good you can eat it plain and the next day makes the perfect slice of toast.  Not like the unfortunate american bread with a shelf life of 4 weeks.  Tastes like nothing and as the texture of cotton wool.  

What's up with that?

 It's getting hot already, so I'm back into the dining room to crank up the air conditioner. Boy, it has been stinking hot here the last few days.  Well not so much hot as humid.  Ugghhh...can't stand the humidity.  Give me a dry blistering heat any day over humidity.

Smiling again at my new enamel jug now in place on the table.  Then realzing the day after the 4th that the table cloth I picked up at the flea market a few months back is very 4th of Julyish.

 Unfortunately my american history knowledge is not up to scratch. You'd think after 22 odd years year I'd have figured what started the old 4th of July celebration!

 Love this table cloth.  It was new old stock, I'm pretty sure that since the package was lacking a bar code it was from the seventies.

So despite the black cloud that has followed me these last few weeks I have managed to keep either something on my needles or something on my hook.

 Nothing too exciting, just a little something to use up some scraps and try and keep the sunshining for me.

 A little bit of playing with different stitches to keep things interesting.

 And I now have *another* colourful bag!

  It still needs lining so stuff doesn't fall out the holes.  It only took a few days to wip up and I'll tell you, despite the fact that I have absolutely NO need for another bag, I made it anyway.  It help shoo away that nasty black cloud and bring me back to sunshine and smiley days!

I do hope the sun is shining over you and the weather is treating you kindly too.

Thank you for sticking by the rather long and disjointed post and I do hope you'll be back to visit again. Please drop a line and say hello, your little words are much appreciated.

Toodles...L x ♥