Our enchanted garden

I went down to the bottom of the garden last night to check on the pumpkins progress, I only got half of the way down there when I could see them, they are huge! We seem to have three at the moment but with plenty more flowers still there (so hopefully we will get a few more). After the disaster of last year (lovely looking plants, but no yield) we decided to give a giant variety a go, and I must say they are very impressive. I am already planning Halloween treats, pumpkin pie and honeyed seeds but there is a while to go before that. Today is my first day looking after the dogs and friends, I went round to get feeding instructions last night and Trish & Malc were just beginning to pack and couldn't find anything (their ferry left at 4 this morning). When I went round this morning however calm was restored. Sam is coming round on Friday night to watch videos with us all and have her share of dog cuddling so that should be really good :-)

No violin last night as Robin is on his hols so I stayed at home and knitted for my life, I managed to finish Jacob's (baby Peters) hat and give it a rather large pom pom on the top. I'm putting it in the post this afternoon after I've shown it to the knitting group (I'm adding the pattern to our pattern library). I'm hoping Michelle will send me a photo of him wearing it which I can put up here. The knitting group are already thinking about Christmas knits, we have a large chart documenting what everyone has promised to knit before then (in pictorial form) and the first person to finish gets a mystery prize (it will be something from the garden in all probability). I've got to seriously consider what it is possible I can knit before then (this means making a Christmas list in August, but if you could see the weather here, grey and overcast, you would assume it was at least October, so autumnal is it).

Yesterday I forwent my lunchtime stroll and spent the whole hour surfing the net. I tried to become a seller on Etsy (this didn't work as you need a credit card, might have to get one of these just for this). Despite this major setback I did manage to find some brilliant stuff including dolls made from entirely natural materials which are here http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5937868, lovely mosses in jars which can be found here http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5323112&show_panel=true and the always fabulous illustrations by Rima which are on paper here http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5195715 and ceramics here http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14327144. Its just really brilliant that there are so many talented people out there.