Spent the weekend in creative pursuits - knitting, cooking and nurturing plants. I am once again attempting to grow sweet peas (pot with wigwam cane next to crazy lily plant):

I never give them enough water - apparently it is impossible to over-water sweet peas! - so they always look a bit bleached out and ragged by mid-Summer, with a meagre flower crop, and I am left feeling guilty at my flower murdering efforts. So, buckets of water this year I promise. The lilies on the other hand, just hang around as dormant bulbs all through the winter with no love at all, and then come bursting into life.

I was invited to Helen's for supper on Sunday, as both our husbands are away in snowy regions, and I offered to provide wine and dessert. Luckily the wine I plucked from the bottle rack in the fridge was one of Helen's most favourites. And as it was a weekend night, I thought that arriving with a Marks and Spencers tart was a bit lazy (but, Cheryl aka Queen of Puddings, a perfectly acceptable mid-week offering). So some Jamie Oliver chocolate pots were made, accompanied by his orange and polenta biscuits. They looked a bit mis-shapen and messy on the greaseproof paper :

But once assembled with a chocolate pot.....

Yummy yum-mah!

I would hate you to think that all this activity got in the way of some serious knitting. The Tommy vest is finished, and just needs some buttons. I am amazed that I don't have two buttons the same in the right size, given the collection that I seem to be building up, so a trip to Liberty is in store.

I also decided not to deviate from my non-blocking technique, so started to pick up the button bands and collar for Maddox. Here she is in pieces, not looking particularly attractive:

Hopefully by the end of tonight she will be her gorgeous finished self. Carolyn - with all the gigs has been attending lately, I doubt that you have caught up! Very pleased that you liked the Decemberists gig though - aren't they just the nicest bunch? And definitely the most attractive 'Colin' I have ever witnessed.

That brings me to the end of my bumper post, except to say that I am hopelessly addicted to a new Aussie drama series called Love My Way on a channel I had never even heard of before - Five Life. I was similarly smitten by The Secret Life of Us, which had the same star Claudia Karvan. Because, of course, they only have about a dozen working actors in Australia.