Crochet basket

Another holiday and another crochet project. This actually was a bit of an impromptu crochet job as some yarn in a bin box called to me when I was guarding the bikes whilst waiting outside the fish and chip shop. You know how it goes, it's bank holiday weekend and you are just standing around not wanting to go too far (we hadn't taken bike locks), and the yarn shop is very close to the chippy, and the sale basket is just there and there is some interesting yarn at a great price. It was meant to be. I then had to come up with an idea for 3 balls of superbulky yarn which recommended 15mm needles for knitting. Whoppers then. However, since I happened to have all my crochet hooks with me :) I chose a 10mm hook and made a start straight away. I ended up undoing my first effort as whilst it was making a pretty sturdy fabric I wanted to make something that would stand up on it's own and could be used as a bin liner or similar so the following day I went shopping for a plastic bin or bag of some sort and saw the perfect item; a plastic flexi bag.

Now I had something to work around for size.  All went swimmingly well until I ran out of pink super bulky yarn with not much hope of getting some more. You see how my projects escalate? So, back to the yarn shop (The Mill in Sutton on Sea) for something to improvise with to finish the basket. I ended up buying 3 balls of chunky yarn to ply together to make the right thickness. It was a bit too thick with 3 strands but this actually worked in my favour because the flexi bag was wider at the top than the bottom so I didn't need to do any shaping. Anyway, it was finished in quite short order with a bit of a flower embellishment to finish off the pink wool. Now I have a lovely crocheted basket that I'm not really sure what to do with. At the moment it is holding my current patterns, books and projects and being both useful and stylish! Just in case it looks like I spent all my holiday crocheting I can confirm that I did a lot of cycling and walking too (and some embroidery, but that is another story)!

Sunrise at Sutton on Sea

A beautiful sunrise is much more accessible at this time of year.....a civilised 08:00 start meant that even I was tempted out of bed (and outside) on a chilly dewy morning before breakfast. 

The beach hut decoration is pretty good this year. I love this one with the 3d solid wood sailing boat. Some huts just have amusing names like number 40 which is called Winks. Geddit?

Back at home and it's family tea Sunday. I'm actually able to potter about baking without the awful encumbrance of a crutch so have had a baking splurge. Some easy sourdough cheese scones and a new Orange and Almond cake recipe. The interesting thing about this cake is that you poach a whole orange for about 30 mins in a pan of boiling water and then blitz it in a food processor until you have a puree. The eggs and sugar are whipped until light and frothy and then the flour (I used spelt) and ground almonds and baking powder are folded into the eggy mix, followed by the orange puree. So easy to do. It's then baked for about 40 mins at 160C until the top is golden and springy. After cooling for a while I mixed some icing sugar with clementine juice and drizzled over the top.
1 orange
3 eggs
140g castor sugar
85g flour (plus 1tsp  baking powder if plain flour)
150g ground almonds

Swimming with seals

Actually, it was swimming with 1 seal, but still it made me smile. Whilst on my jollydays at the seaside and after 2 mornings of lying in bed trying to psyche myself up for a swim before breakfast, I managed to overcome the little voice that said "Nah, it's too cold in the sea.....do it tomorrow" and settled into a routine of morning swims. Every morning I had the sea to myself so was considerably surprised when I glimpsed a head out of the corner of my eye, and when I jumped up to get a good look at it over the waves I could see it was a seal looking at me as I was looking back. It dipped below the sea and resurfaced a little further away and of course I said "Hello" and waved (as you do). It made me giggle for ages.

It was a most relaxing holiday with hexagon sewing in the sun whilst listening to Harry Potter punctuated by cycling along the promenade, visits to the nature reserve and playing with photography. The nature reserve generally seems devoid of birds (we don't call binoculars "bird scarers" for nothing), but I contented myself with picking (and eating) bilberries. 

Dune steps

Bilberry picking at Theddlethorpe Nature Reserve

For a couple of days we cycled as far as we could along the promenade and surprisingly we managed about 3 miles before the path turned into a sand dune. Over the years we have seen the sea defences change from being concrete steps up to the promenade, to big boulders (in places), and then to 'beach nourishment' which is essentially pumping a load of dredged sand onto the beach to form a big bank of sand up to the promenade. This is repeated every year to replace sand washed away by the tides, but now the sand is becoming increasingly populated with dune grass and sea holly. Sand dunes are on their way back! It is still really strange to see so much sand and grass on the beach after years of concrete steps, wooden groynes and sometimes squishy mud flats. Another thing which still surprises me is the sight of all the wind turbines out to sea which seem to be steadily marching nearer to 'our' beach.