Long time no post

It does feel ages since I last posted and in fact this does appear to be my first post in May. Being as it's now 26th of the month that's not very good going.

I haven't even got the excuse that we've been too busy - the only thing that's graced our calendars this month really has been our trip to New York last week and weekend. I was out there with work for 4 days of meetings and conferences, and Ali came over and joined me on the Thursday. We hadn't been in the Big Apple together since our first romantic holiday together over 6 years ago, so it was lovely to be back. The weather wasn't that kind to us - tramping round Soho and Little Italy in the pouring rain isn't really having that great a time - but we had a sunny day on the Saturday and took a blowy Staten Island ferry trip as well as discovering a great little Italian restaurant near the Brooklyn Bridge. The obligatory credit card splurge took place but other than that not much to report.

Apart from this we've really been quite quiet. At the end of April we went up to Manchester to see Alison, Stuart, and Archie. Cue loads of photos of adoring auntie and uncle... My knitting projects went down really well and I've now finished a couple more things for him - a little orange tank top (apparently he's put on quite a growth spurt in the last few weeks so I'm praying it will still fit) and a toy sheep. This one didn't take me too long in the end but it was really fiddly and I had to read the pattern through about 4 times before I could get to grips with it - also my first attempt at intarsia was, well, interesting to say the least. Luckily none of the mistakes show on the outside. The pictures aren't very good but I didn't want to disturb Ali while he's ironing to get him to take more professional looking ones ;o)

So now it's the May Bank Holiday and it's been chucking it down all weekend. Not being able to get out in the garden has been really frustrating, though we have had to make some emergency fix-it dashes to tie back drooping roses, sort out the plastic around the tomato plants etc. I have dahlias that are bursting out of the cold frame and really could do with planting out - so here's to a sunny few days next weekend.