Friday Feel-good

I'm obsessing over a number of things at the moment, one being the amount of water that keeps falling from the sky, another being roses. Re the water thing...it's been so-so-so-so-so-so wet here this week, wet like you wouldn't believe. The little babbling beck that runs through our town swelled into a raging torrent and burst it's banks. Local roads have flooded. And closer to home, my (leaking) bay window roof has been pouring a steady stream of water into the living room. I've been collecting it in the washing up bowl, which in turn has become a makeshift paddling pool for Little B. Sometimes he's taken his socks off first, but mostly he's been climbing into it fully clothed. It's not been an easy week on the mothering front.

It's been a wellie wearing week for sure. Yesterday Little B and I splashed into town to go to knit and natter at the café. Actually, despite the rather dismal feeling of my coat being totally inadequate and not actually keeping me dry, we had fun. I deliberately took myself down to Little B's level mentally and emotionally and attempted to experience the walk in the way that he was doing. Puddles (lots of them), lets jump and splash! Rain pouring down (and soaking us to the skin), lets feel the joy! Gutters leaking (and pouring showers of water on top of our heads), lets laugh and find it funny! It worked to a point and much to my surprise I did rather enjoy the whole wet experience. After getting so soaked, it also made it doubly delicious to spend the morning drying out in the warm, fragrant café amongst yarny friends, drinking hot milky coffee and eating toasted fruit bread. I even crocheted half a rose.

Which brings me neatly to the Obsession of Today......................

Ten stems of the most exquisite orange roses, purchased from the market for £2.95.

Oh the pure joy these flowers have provided me with today is almost indescribable. I have fallen completely in love with them.

I snipped the stems short because I really desperately wanted to see them in my red and white spotty jug. They looked a bit lost bobbing about in the jug with no leaves to speak of, so I went out (in the rain) to snip some miscellaneous greenery from the front garden to accompany them. That almost tipped me over the edge then...the glorious orange blooms with the bright leafy green foliage nestling in red with white spots... ooooooooooooooooooohhhh!

Sigh. So completely beautiful. I don't think I've ever bought orange roses before, and I wonder now why ever not? Look what I've been missing all these years!

If you could've seen me here at the table this morning (this was 10.33am), you would've seen a very happy soul indeed. After the gloom of the weather this week, with all the added hassle it has brought to the school run (not to mention the roof/bowl/paddling toddler scenario and the resulting piles of wet clothes all over the place), I really felt in need of some Feel-good.

This was my recipe for todays Friday Feel-good ::

• Some child free time (45 mins while Little B was at playgroup)

• Good coffee (a take-out from the local coffee shop, decanted into my pretty mug)

• Something sweet and calorie laden ( Pain au raisin from the M&S bakery, tut-tut)

• A jug of fresh flowers on the table (smoochy, swoony orange roses of course)

• A little bit of colourful Hooky to work on (woolly stripes)

It worked a treat and the Feel-good was overflowing.

The stripes are coming on a treat too, very jolly indeed. As you know, I'm working on a stripy wreath base for my May Roses, and I am really, really enjoying making them. I'm using the Rico Merino wool I bought recently (see this post for colour info), mixed in with some odd scraps of baby cashmerino. I'm working in htc (half treble crochet) on a 3.5mm hook, so the stripes are coming out quite neat and tight (I don't want the white of the polystyrene wreath to show through when I stretch it over). I'm choosing the colours and stripe width completely at random, and loving it.

While I was working on the stripes and having a play with the roses I'd already made, I had a sudden overwhelming urge to make a sweet blue forget-me-not type flower. So I grabbed some yellow and turquoise blue yarn and set to work using my teeny-tiny flower pattern.

I'm really happy with how it turned out and I think a few of them dotted in amongst the roses will look super-cute. This wreath is going to be quite something when it's finished, I'm so looking forward to bringing it all together.

Ahhhh another adoring gaze at that orange beauty. Amazing how rapidly the petals began to relax and unfurl once they came into the house.

Now then. I have to confess this wickedly extravagant thought that keeps persistently needling away at me. I can't stop thinking of all the other colours of roses that Mr Plant Man had in his pavement buckets today. Yellow, pale pink, magenta, red.......the memory of them is giving me this incredible urge to go and buy a whole armful, one bunch of each colour. I could cram them all into a big jug and enjoy a week of Mulicoloured Floral Magnificence. £14.75 for fifty roses ?? Hmmm, I think I just squashed that delicious pesky thought right back down where it belongs. Ten is quite enough. Orange roses are good. Orange roses are great. Less is more an' all that.

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Comments

[Jenny]

Your wreath is looking amazing so far, I can't wait to see it finished! Yay for orange roses too :) Jenny x

[Ada]

hi I think we should all spend at least some part of each day mentally and emotionally at a child level! I think we would all be a lot happier if we did! Lovely post, as usual Lucy, :)

[maria joao]

You made me smile. Thank you

[Heather]

Thanks for bringing fab colour to a bleurgh weather week! I thought of you Lucy this week when I looked at my clothes and thought "why all the black.?". I promptly bought some stripy veeeeery bright socks! Thanks for bringing colour to my life x

[Selena]

Sorry, that should have been a smile! :-) :-)

[Selena]

Get another colour next week, then the week after, extend the joy :-(

[Emily]

Roses are my absolute favourite flower. I completely understand your obsession with them. Live the crocheted ones too xx