Sunday and Monday 14th and 15th April

 Well, my head was full of profound (ish) and helpful (maybe) things to blog about on Sunday, and in the end the post didn't happen. Probably just as well!

But, on the more ordinary side of life, my Egyptian Walking Onion that I was all excited about last year has survived the winter and has six flower stalks. I am excited all over again.

If you expand the picture you might be able to spot the buds, looking similar to chive flowers. From reading up it seems that these will become flowers and then a cluster of little onion sets at the top of the stalk. The weight of the sets should make the stalk bend over and deposit the sets on the earth, and then baby walking onions will root and grow. If I don't save the sets and pot them up for friends or eat them, because the leaves and the sets are edible. 

The first groups of little broad beans are also doing well. I don't know if the copper rings, made by cutting off the tops of plastic flower pots and sticking copper tape around them are deterring the slugs or if those pestilential molluscs haven't discovered them yet. Although some are looking a little nibbled... 

 Yesterday I was clearing out a pot which I had earmarked for broad beans or peas but had been colonised by self-seeded poppies. As I dug out the poppies, delving deep to get as much root as possible, I found a couple of very small potatoes, left over from last year. I've shifted those into another pot to see if they will turn into lots of potatoes in due course, and repotted the poppies. Two of the poppies were instantly at home but the other two looked sad and wilted by the evening.

However they have perked up overnight - maybe the couple of heavy showers of rain were just what they wanted, even if no-one else wanted more rain.

A current new sewing project to fill in time before the final phase of our cross stitch collaboration (that's Ang and Me) is another book cover. I've cut a foundation from an old worn pillowcase using an A5 notebook as a template, with enough at the top and bottom for hemming and on either side to make sleeves to fit over the front and back cover of the book. Top Tip - make sure the book is closed when you do this to allow for the thickness of the spine). I also drew around the borders to mark the finished size of the decorated part of the cover, again allowing for the spine.

Six 5 inch charm squares, meant for patchwork originally, are enough to cover the book; I've pinned my choice roughly the the foundation here;

It's hard to be accurate when you are working on your lap...

My plan is to embellish each square which whatever I feel like, just setting in a few stitches as I am in the mood. Then I'll stitch them onto the foundation and see what I think. Here's the first square in progress (top right in the layout above)