Here is my progress from Spring Queen (rotation for last week). I managed to get quite a bit done, and it almost looks finished. Still quite a fair bit to do in the bottom right corner, but 1 or 2 more rotations, and she is done... and then the beading of course.

As I now have a 6 weekly rotation, this piece won't come out again now before November.

Nafees left for Pakistan yesterday, and I felt somewhat lost. I am usually quite happy just with my own company, and certainly I know how to occupy myself, the day is never long enough for me, so I didn't expect this. I suppose this is because Naf is my best friend as much as my DH.. . and isn't it true what they say... you only miss something if you don't have it any more. Well, enough ''cause he is gonna come back in just 4 weeks. Thomas kept my company here in my room as you can see. And I get looots of cross stitch done - I worked on Spring Queen for the whole of last evening, and enjoyed it enourmously.

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous this weekend. Nice warm September sun, and autumn is unmistakingly on its way. It's a bit too dry for more fungi to come at the moment. I took some rosehips and brought them inside, they are now on my kitchen windowsill, I was surprised by how beautiful this simple idea looks. Should have thought of this earlier and might get some more today.

I've spotted the first inkcaps of the year last week. The first ones were across the road were I walk with Bonnie, then I saw more on the lawns behind the house - that's were I saw them last year and was waiting for them to make an appearance. I do not collect them but just enjoy watching them appear every day. they are apparently eatable, but for some reason, in my family they never took them - well, mum told me that she saw gran fry them once and they go all funny and 'inky' in the pan, in the same way that they deteriorate if you don't pick them after a day or so. That has really put her off.

Steel, Danielle ' Five Days in Paris '

Peter Haskell, president of a major pharmaceutical company, has everything: power, position and a family for which he has sacrafied a great deal. Olivia Thatcher (...who comes up with those names....the author, I know but... Thatcher ... politician ...get it????) is the wife of a famous senator, who has given to her husband's ambitions and career until her soul is bone-dry. She is trapped in a web of duty and obligatio, married to a man she once loe and no longer even knows; when her son died, a piece of Olivia died too.On the night of a bomb threat, Olivia and Peter meet accidentally in Paris. Their lives converge for a magical moment in the Place Vendome, and in a cafe in Montmartre thier hearts are laid bare.

Spoiler (or is it, this is the question....!)

Romance - not my usual subject, but as always, I am prepared to read outside of my boundaries. It made a v. nice communter read, easy to get into the story. The only thing which always disturbs me about romance novels is what most people like and expect of them: the happy ending. The couple always gets each other at the end... so boring, so predictable.

I've finished the cow and it will go on its way to Alda tomorrow. The chart was dreadful though, with only colour squares and no symbols. That's the only cross stitch I did this week, I did none on my planned rotation piece 'Waterlilies'. I'm just always sooo tired at the end of the day during the week, don't feel like going on the laptop, don't feel like cross stitch... I don't even want to think about my exam which is coming up on 14.October! I have started my revision, but did so far maybe..10% of all the stuff I have to cover. I've got no idea how to motivate myself for this.

Nafees is flying out next Saturday to Pakistan, and we have been preparing over the weekend. We went to Walthamstow yesterday in East London. We used to live there from 1993- 2003. It has a huge market, and Nafees wanted especially sewing material for his mum. Walthamstow has a huge Asian population, and material for Asian dresses is really easy to find. Fruit and veg are so much cheaper than here as well. He also bought stuff like lipsticks, shirts, sweets and shower gel as gifts. I've got a funny feeling he will not be able to get it all in his bag, especially as he is only allowed 20kg.

This is what I started stitching last week - can you see what it is? 4 legs and udder should give you a clue - yep, a cow.

What a lucky escape I had - that's how I found Bonnie with the hoop. She didn't chew it and just looked bored with it, but I'm sure she would have chewed on it sooner or later. Gosh, all the things she chewed to pieces.... A camera!!! must have been the most valuable item. Thanks goodness it was not a new one and we hardly ever used it any more (it was my first digi cam). Still...



Back to the cow... not what I would normally stitch, I'm doing this for one of my German friends, Kimmy. She has a big 'cross stitcher's meeting' in her house in Bavaria every year - and the cow is for her husband, as he patiently bears about 30 'needle-witches' for about a week oncea a year. So 9 of us stitching an individual cow, and Alda, the very talented quilter will make it into a crazy cow quilt for Kimmy's DH

September is my absolute favorite month. I love the early autumn sun, and even the rainy days when its not too cold yet, don't mind having the rain in my face when I'm walking with Bonnie.

I'm sure many of you must have noticed that there is something wrong with the chestnut trees here, and in mainland Europe as well (I saw it in Germany as well, even worse then here in England). I think I read somewhere it's some kind of disease/virus which is affecting the chestnut trees, and my mum told me from Germany she heard somewhere that realistically all the foilage/fallen leaves would need to be disposed off/burned to kill the virus. Cause, this is not gonna happen. The trees have almost no leaves left (even in July), and the ones which are on them are all brown and look 'burned away', hardly any conkers. I wonder how they will turn out next year, whether the trees recover or once the tree is affected with the virus, that's it.

Here it is, taken from the website of the Royal Horticultural Society:
http://www.rhs.org.uk/news/top10pests.asp
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RHS top 10 pest enquiries
1. Horse chestnut leaf miner (Cameraria ohridella) NEW
This is a tiny moth whose caterpillars feed within horse chestnut leaves, causing extensive white or brown blotches. This pest was new to Britain in 2002 when it was found at Wimbledon. It is now widespread in south east England and is rapidly spreading to other parts of Britain. By late summer, trees can be so heavily infested that they appear to be dying, because of the dried-up appearance of the foliage. The trees will survive and develop normal leaves in the following spring but renewed damage will be seen from late June onwards.
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I love rosehips, found them on my walk in all sizes and different shades of red - aren't they beautiful. I'm still on the lookout for fungi, but there are simple none here apart from a teeny-weeny one I found. Not sure what it is, only a few millimeters high, very thin.

Why are the weekends always sooo short? My Saturday is usually taken with doing the house up, and in the morning I go swimming with Ruby. She is quite good now, going into the deep end. Considering she only started in January.... My sons love to go fishing, and when we talked about it at work, one of my co-workers said 'Well, as long as he can swim' ... aehmmm, no, he can't, at least not properly. He's had some lessons in school, but that never went beyond 5 meters. I'm not quite sure if I can enrole him still to lessons, because our swimming pool does lessons either for children (they are all 5 up to 10, no way my 14 year old would go to that!), or lessons for adults. He doesn't go out on a boat or something btw, but just stands on the shore.

It's been raining on-off the whole weekend. I've been trying today to finish TMA06 which has to be submitted by next Wednesday 10.09. No extension available. I did quite a lot in Germany, and only need another 500 words. Because I don't enjoy the course this year, I have really stopped caring and don't keep changing the assignment. Just gotta do with what's there. And then I have to start revision, the exam is on 14.10. Plan was to do a 'revision plan' today he he, it's still on my little 'to-do' note on the desktop of my laptop.

Spoke to my mum as every weekend, and she is finding lots of Parasol fungi (Schirmpilze) - gosh, there are my all=time favourite food. Maybe just because I can only only get them in Germany with my mum. Apparently, they also grow in the UK, but I have never seen them. True, I never go in the forest here, don't know where to start. Maybe I should look into it. Fungi picking doesn't appear as popular here as it is in Germany, at least the part where I come from, but I think it is 'coming', there is an article in this month's Gardener's world magazine by Monty Donwho talks about getting back to nature, enjoying the fruits presented to us readily (e.g. blackberries) and also mushrooms!

Dean Koontz ' Midnight '

I first came across Dean Koontz in a car boot sale when I ransacked the seller's stock of Stephen King and she said 'Do you want Deant Koontz as well' Well, I didn't know him then and she said he writes similar stuff to King. While he absolutely has not the same writing style as King, it is probably the same genre. I have warmed to him, and this book is right to my taste.

'What is the dark and fearful secret that haunts Moonlight Cove? A string of inexplicable deaths has occurred in this idyllic, picturesque coastal town; sinister, shadowy figures stalk the streets in the dead of the night; and four people are drawn together by terrifying circumstances: A young woman determined to find the truth behind her sister's strange suicide; an undercover federal agent; a child on the run from her parents; and a wheelchair bound veteran. '

Great graphic descriptions of the weird happenings, but as often with those books, I expected something more from the ending. A great read though and I finished it very quickly.

Now quickly a few pictures from our holiday. Despite all the anxiety with Dan, it was still a great holiday and even though I didn't realize at the time (because I felt so tired most of the time) I do feel much more relaxed now, especially at work. Won' t last I'm afraid and I will probably be stressed again to pre-holiday level by the end of this week LOL.




Dan discovered the joy of fishing and won't talk about nothing else! Well, I suppose there is worse things a teenager could have in his mind...

My Mum and her dog Isi (she is a Tibetan Terrier/Spitz cross)Nafees came to join us in our holiday on the last week, and we visited Poland, which is just about 20mins in the train from where my parents live and then a short walk across town. The town on the German side is called Frankfurt /Oder (not to be confused the Frankfurt/Main which is the Frankfurt most people know), and the town on the Polish side is called Slubice.

I will go the see our GP (Doctor) tomorrow, and then we'll see. The children are back at school again and I should be back to my usual routine. Bonnie was really strange the first day when we came back from holiday. She was so extremely lazy to a point that Imran thought she is ill, as she was only laying down and was hardly moving. She also looked huge and fat to me, thought that could be because my Mum's dog is so small compared to her. I started our usual routine of 2 short walks(morning/evening) and one longer walk in the afternoon and already she is much more settled.