AWOL

I’m sorry I’ve not been to visit here, and failed to visit everybody else, but I have been busy ‘doing’.

Father’s chair is complete and will be delivered this weekend. Friendwithmatchinggirls’ curtains are all altered for her new house and will be delivered tomorrow. I have been out lifting and dividing perennials in my garden where spring has finally sprung: there is frogspawn in the pond and daffodils, pulmonaria and primroses flowering in every direction. The washing's gone out on the line at last. The hall and landings are being decorated so we're living in a certain amount of chaos, but it will be lighter and brighter - and cleaner!

Now, have you been watching The Great British Sewing Bee? (And yes, I thought they were spelling bees, I’m not sure about sewing ones.) It’s Bake Off with sewing. Thing is, I’m definitely part of the target audience as both a seamstress and a keen viewer of many cooking programmes, and I know it’s early days, but it’s not right yet… I want more information about the tasks and how they should look, I want closer detail of the stitching they’ve done so that I can better understand what’s right/wrong about it, and I want a better rapport between the three presenters. Did Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood get it right at the start? I don’t know as I didn’t watch the first series, but they give down to earth feedback without it seeming as though they are trying not to be scathing – I feel the nice lady from the WI and the smart tailor don’t even have a passion for sewing in common. Claudia’s cute but a bit too random in her comments, without the humour that is Mel and Sue. Episode three of four is tonight on BBC2; I hope it gets another series, but with amendments. Watching Paul Hollywood making bread last night affirmed how beautifully food is now photographed at all stages; it would make all the difference if they could do the same for stitching.

Froggy Love

There was a neglected corner in our garden.

 Husband designed a pond, some men built it, and I planted it up. All this happened in 2008. It has been a joy and a focus point in the garden. We imported a bucketful of water from a friend’s pond to introduce some bugs, as recommended in the gardening books.

We bought some plants from a garden centre, and were given some oxygenating plants from the pond mentioned before. The plants and creatures have thrived. Then later we imported some frogspawn from the same pond (before we heard on The Today Programme that this wasn’t recommended.

Two summers ago we watched in horror as the tadpoles were picked off by the diving beetle larvae. They were so greedy we feared there’d never be any frogs.

Last year, we saw frogs in our pond, sunbathing on the pebbles or hanging out amongst the marginals and disappearing into the Hornwort if they noticed us. But on Sunday we suddenly realised that they were not only in evidence, but hanging out in a very amorous fashion: there is a positive orgy going on outside my window! There is frogspawn! We will have an added reason to pop into the garden or gaze out of the window: there will be new life developing in our pond.