And breathe!

It's been a whirlwind of a half term; non-stop busy. I'm not complaining though as it's been lovely. Last weekend, Mr JK and I went to London as he was running in a 10K race on the May Bank Holiday Monday. As we didn't leave Norfolk until mid morning on Saturday, we decided to stop off en route rather than head into London that day, and so after consultation with maps, Audley End was chosen as our destination. It's run by English Heritage and there was plenty there to keep us entertained for a few hours. After going around the house, we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the grounds. Capability Brown did a lot of the landscaping of the grounds, although it seems that he fell out with the owner of the house and never completed the job! 

One of the hot houses was full of pots of strawberries; the aroma was rather delicious. I wonder whose job it is to pick all that fruit?! I hope it doesn't go to waste. 

On Sunday, we went to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Although we've visited there before, I never tire of it as there's always so much to see. It was a little cool when we arrived, so the Palm House was our first stop. 



After that, we went to the Lily House, my favourite part in the whole of Kew. There is something magical about it with the huge green lily pads and the splashes of colour from the blooms. 

I even managed a few rounds of sock knitting whilst taking a rest. It is the most glorious place. If I lived near by, I'd definitely have a season ticket to go there regularly! 

Monday was race day - the Vitality London 10K - and while Mr JK was waiting in The Mall for the race to start, (apologies for the grainy phone photo)

I got a photo of one of my ThreeBagsFull bags on the gates of Buckingham Palace; I thought it might make the group members smile!

After the race, (Mr JK ran a personal best!!) we headed back up to Norfolk where I unpacked our case and promptly packed another bag for the next day. I was going to stay with my friend from Uni days, Diane. You might remember me teaching her to crochet and knit socks on previous visits. To say that Diane has become hooked on crochet is a bit of an understatement! Her house is bursting with loads of crocheted blankets, each one gorgeous! I felt quite proud that I had started her off on this woolly adventure and having seen all her blankets, I really want to crochet my own granny square blanket! Just look at all these - a veritable snuggle of blankets!

I worked on my sock while Diane crocheted, and we whiled away the days quite happily, popping in and out to get supplies (both food and yarn!); there was much drinking of tea and eating of cake that week!

We did venture out one sunny morning to the gardens at Knightshayes. The walled garden there has been restored and it really is magnificent. I don't think they can be short of volunteers to work there, it's idyllic! (Perhaps not so good when it's freezing cold and pouring with rain!)

Before you ask, yes, of course we had a cream tea! There really is nothing quite so delicious as freshly baked scones smothered with a rather indecently large amount of Devonshire clotted cream, topped off with blackcurrant curd! I am not looking forward to getting on the scales tomorrow morning, let me tell you!

With all the travelling I did over the holiday, there was loads of knitting and hooky time, so I will share what I've been working on with you another time! I need to get my 'school head' together now and think about the coming week! Hope it's a good one for you! xxx