Spiky veg and a great big ball

And on the plus side, it's a really excellent photo of that tree trunk

Just a couple of things I wanted to show you. The moon through the trees the other night.

If the garden ended there I could probably cope with it. It does not

My bulbs! They grew, they flowered! They inspired me to cut out a yellow and blue quilt and now I have Quilter’s Bottom™ from hovering over the cutting board! (I know that table looks scruffy. Go and google ‘teak garden table prices UK’ and then try and find it in your heart to condemn me).

I grew something! I know it doesn't count!

Close up of the hyacinths, in full bloom. They are just lovely. The smell is permeating the entire kitchen. Obviously it has done a bit of a number on my hayfever, but I try to be brave.

I have to say, I don't know where to start with this one. Thank God for the internet (crosses fingers)

A spiky vegetable. How hopeful are we that I can turn it into an edible dinner? Me = not hopeful at all, especially after the man in the shop told me it was ‘very bitter. Very very bitter, and excellent for people with diabetes!’ with real enthusiasm. Yum, I thought. Yum. It is called Kerala.

20% wool! Be still my beating heart!

A giant ball of aran. This is the slippery slope. Not only am I no longer a cool person (because, the highlight of my day today was getting my National Trust membership pack. I am so excited! I am going to go and read the handbook and plan excursions!), I am also no longer a cool knitter. Cool knitters do not have giant balls of aran. They have handspun laceweight which they have fashioned themselves from the soft underbelly of an alpaca they rescued from difficult conditions. They do not have enormous balls of an acrylic mix in questionable colours. I shall just say this though: £7.45 for over 900 yards. And it’s soft. Is it looking any more attractive now? (Non-UK knitters, do you even have these giant balls of aran, or is it something that doesn’t translate overseas?).

And, do you remember my interviews? Do you, hey hey hey? Well I have started them up again and I am going to do one tomorrow. Yes, because it has been a long time, I am going to relax my Friday rule. I know, it’s anarchy, don’t feel too disorientated. At least there’ll always be the giant aran balls (really, there will be. They’d survive a nuclear winter. The first shop that started up after the nuclear winter would probably have giant aran balls, Take A Break, and Pot Noodles). So, tomorrow’s interview is with Amy from Amy Orange Juice who is going to tell us about her lovely stained glass work, do check back for that. Now I go, I go to cut out more quilt squares. I try to see this as a form of Pilates and I am hopeful that not only will I have another quilt at some point but I will have buttock muscles you could crack nuts with. Watch out for my forthcoming DVD, Tone Your Bottom Through Quilting. I am not sure how well shots of me hunched and groaning over the cutting board will translate to TV but perhaps it will find a specialist market.