This year's Jane Austen Party was just as fun as usual. Four lovely ladies came to have tea with me - two of them who now live out of town - and we had a wonderful time eating goodies and chattering about anything that came to mind. My sister Jane came over early to help me make all the little sandwiches and Rob took Abby for an extra long walk to keep things calm while everyone arrived.






Everyone felt that Barm Brack should have a cuter name to go with the rest of the food. Suggestions included Barm Bracky and Yesterday's Tea Bread. The latter comes from the way the recipe starts off with leftover tea (you soak the dried fruit in it overnight). It tastes a lot like Christmas cake but without the cherries or brandy.


We had lots of food leftover but fortunately everyone was happy to take some goodies home and Rob and I ended up with a manageable quantity of cookies and cake to get through this week.


It was so nice to sit and chat with everyone.


Jane and Liette had places to be in the evening but Samera and Renee agreed to join me for a walk around the trail. We had lots of fun taking pictures of each other and the things we saw as we walked.

Preparations have been underway for the annual Jane Austen tea party that will be happening tomorrow afternoon. My kitchen smells fantastic. My carpets have been vacuumed (though Abby has now pulled every last toy out of her toy box again). I even pulled the slipcover off the couch and threw it in the washer (oh, how I love slipcovers). A few random tasks remain, along with a bit of sewing, but most of them have to wait until Abby is in bed for the night so I've got a little lull. Just long enough to blog.

I'll try to share some pictures tomorrow.

We've been busy. After a trip out to the nursery and another to Canadian Tire we spent most of last night and this afternoon playing with plants and dirt.


I've got boxes of flowers along our front deck. My sister, Jane, and I grew the sweet peas and morning glories from seed and then picked up a few more plants to fill things out.


Rob put together our new lawn mower and cleaned up our front lawn. It still needs a good drink but looks so much tidier. That's got to be the fastest possible way to get rid of dandelions.


Two big half barrels (in an awesome yellow) are now hanging out next to the tomatoes Jane gave me. In a few weeks they'll start to show the tops of carrots.


Abby stayed outside with us the whole time we were working. She had a lot of fun chasing bugs and chewing the assembly instructions for the lawn mower but got pretty hot being in the sun for so long.


We were feeling the heat too so, along with an ice cube for Abby, I got some lemonade and cherries out of the fridge. We enjoyed them while admiring our handiwork.

Yesterday marks our first anniversary in this house. It's incredible to think we have been here a whole year. It feel so different now that it did when we moved in.

Oh ... and I got some yarn ... from the nursery.

Yep. I was walking around looking for someone to tell us what the tree we were looking at was, turned a corner in the shop and discovered a nice little display of Knit Picks yarns and needles and some good looking knitting books. It's just to the right of the seed potatoes.

I wanted to get some - to show support for their endeavour you know - and saw the basket of pima cotton at the bottom of the display. The blue and green were so nice and summery and I instantly thought of the Classic Washcloth in The Knitter's Book of Yarn. I scrounged up some needles and cast-on after dinner.


It's so soft!