I’m still alive…

and I am still taking photos and I am still knitting and cooking and things.

But I am also working really hard and by the time I have spent a day at my desk, I want to escape my computer, so the blog is in hiatus. I’ll be back soon, though.

Drawing a blank…

I have a stationery habit. I love pens and paper and all the other bits and bobs. It doesn’t have to be pretty stuff – I love doing the stationery order and buying paper clips and post it notes and ink stamps and things.

But my weakness is pretty notebooks. I have had to stop myself buying them because I have too many. Here’s a random selection of the notebooks that came to hand:

They all have two things in common. I have owned them all for at least two years. And they are all completely blank. I can’t think what to do with them. I keep a ‘commonplace book’ for quotations and poems and things, but my current volume is a very thick notebook which will last me years. I have dozens of jotters I’ve filled with notes and lists. But these books seem to demand something more special than shopping lists or reminders.

But they also deserve to be written in, so I will try again to come up with uses for my pretty books.

Food for thought

This doodle came from the very lovely and very talented Aimee, who blogs over at artsyville and sells her lovely doodles in her etsy shop

I bought several of her prints before Christmas but have just got round to framing one, and here it is on my kitchen wall.

Another hyacinth

This time, one I’ve grown from a bulb. I found the forcing jar on a bric-a-brac stall and bought it for 10p. I had some bulbs hanging about so I filled it with water, bunged a bulb on it and then promptly forgot all about it – until I saw a little flash of blue peeking out.

Frosty morning

This is the cotoneaster again – you can see some of the last berries under the frost.

Outside…

This is lovely…

This was posted on a forum I visit by my friend Femke, and I share it with those of you who didn’t see it, because I think it’s lovely.

Awww

From snow to…

snowdrops!