Feels like Summer

The past few weeks have felt like a dream, a tantalising taste of exactly what Summer should look and feel like as our days continue to roll out all warm, bright and full of sunshine. I have been like a flower, constantly turning my face up to the sun, drinking in the clear blue skies and feeling a deep down gratitude for this season of light and warmth.

The effort I put into sorting out my back yard at the end of May is making me so happy now as we jig along through June. Truthfully it wasn't a huge effort, although it somehow felt like it was in the weeks I spent procrastinating over tackling it. All it took was a couple of afternoons emptying out all my pots of old soil and dead plants, re-filling with fresh compost and planting some cheap and cheerful supermarket annuals to bring an instant hit of colour. J also helped me clear some broken garden furniture and a heap of miscellaneous outdoor debris (plenty of rotten and broken things) so that our outdoor space suddenly feels very much tidier and bigger somehow, even though it's still teeny tiny. We need some new seating, and I am hankering after a small painted wooden storage shed, but for now we are making do.

My flowers aren't really established enough just yet to provide me with much in the way of pickings for indoors, but that didn't stop me.  

I snipped a few small stems....

....and thoroughly enjoyed having my first little back yard posy sitting in a small jug on the dining table. This to me is a sure sign of summer and I absolutely love it.

I've used my backyard a lot during the past few weeks, it provides me with a weeny bit of peaceful solitude at times when the house just feels rather noisy and chaotic with children, television, constant comings and goings. I enjoy it most in the early mornings when I can quietly sneak out through the kitchen door without anyone knowing where I am for a short while. 

I've been crocheting outdoors a fair bit of late, turning my outdoor table into a little bit of a working space. I've been experimenting with crochet using non-machine wash pure wools that felt beautifully when the crochet is popped into the washing machine. I'll show you more of my experiments very soon - it's very exciting I can tell you! 

We walked up to the farm shop at the weekend, a slow stroll for J and I with Little B zooming around us on his bike. I couldn't resist this pretty summery chocolate from Yorkshire based company  Choc Affair, oh you just have to know that the taste was something else - so, so good!

Cherries came home in our bag too, one of our favourite summer fruits and always a delight when they are in season. 

I've been working in my studio, even though the weather has constantly called me to be outside instead. I've got a lot on at the moment with various deadlines fast approaching, so I very much appreciate having my studio to go to as it puts my mind firmly in get-on-with-it mode. Ooooo, I had a super-exciting meeting on Monday with a very lovely lady who traveled especially to see me. I can't tell you anything about it just yet, but lets just say I was squeeeeeing inwardly (and maybe a little bit outwardly too, it was unavoidable) at the ideas and possibilities she put forward. I am keeping digits crossed.

I've got a jug of sweet williams on my studio table this week, they make me sneeze a bit but I can't resist their charming colours and old-fashioned nostalgic looks. 

June brings forth the elderflowers, and my goodness this is a bumper year for these frothy white flowers. They are growing in abundance in my neighbourhood, the trees laden down with so many flowers in full bloom.

We went out at the beginning of last week to gather in some floral booty, Little B and I snipping and gathering and getting dusted with fragrant pollen. 

I shared my elderflower cordial recipe a few years ago (here it is, if you wish to see how to make it), and this year we picked enough flowers to make 3 batches. I've frozen quite a bit of it in small plastic bottles, but we all love to drink it so it doesn't tend to last long. J and I have discovered the delights of an ice cold gin and tonic with an added dash of elderflower cordial, oh, you need to try it, trust me, it is absolutely sublime on a sunny late afternoon.

Bubble blowing - I'm not sure what to say about this except for how lovely it is. All of it. The excitement never fades for me where big, blowy bubbles are concerned, they just make me insanely happy.

My hill view is wearing it's beautiful green summer outfit, and the cold, brown days seem far behind us. We've had rain this week for the first time since the start of the month, so the countryside is looking (and smelling) especially fresh.

Quite often I will find a reason to walk down to the supermarket in the evenings, to purchase something completely random that absolutely cannot wait until the morning. I like the feeling of being out and about in the evenings whilst it's still light, it gives me a brief feeling of freedom to escape the house at unexpected times. I like when the days feel longer than normal. I like it a lot.

Work at the allotment continues, I wish I had some better pictures to share with you. My sweet peas are doing well, and so far the beans and spinach seem to be surviving the mollusks. We've seen some enormous frogs hopping about on our plot, so I hope their bellies are full of slugs! I was late putting the sweet peas into the ground (nothing new there) and now feel desperate for them to grow big and tall and flower at warp speed. I absolutely cannot WAIT for the flowers! 

J and I did a shortish walk at Bolton Abbey on Monday, stopping a while on the beach opposite the abbey ruins to eat a picnic lunch. It was peaceful and quiet, and unusually I missed the Little People on that day. Mondays are usually all about relishing our child-free hours together, but there was something about being on that beach that tugged at my heart strings and made me wish for the kidlets to be there. Not that the Teens would want to do that sort of thing nowadays, but I remember them so vividly enjoying this place in years gone by. 

Another evening stroll on a still, warm day - I think it was Sunday evening. I had an urge to walk in the woods as it had rained earlier in the day and I fancied a bit of "Shinrin-yoku" would be a good thing before bed.

I had the pleasure of both Little B and Little Lady with me on this walk.....

...chattering loudly as we walked in the cool damp woodland. It did indeed smell gorgeous, just as I hoped it would.

By the time we returned home it was 9pm and the sun was well on it's way down, shining low and golden through the trees and reminding me for the zillionth time how much I adore the feel of summer. I hope you are loving these mid-year days and finding lots of little things to make you feel happy.

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Comments

[تراست آکوا]

The pictures were very beautiful, I enjoyed them.

[ساندویچ پانل پلی اورتان]

Hot summer days, along with the overwhelming heat, have their own beauty, such as delicious fruits, green trees, summer activities such as swimming pools and swimming, which increase in this season.
ساندویچ پانل سقفی

[اتصالات جوشی]

Thank you for sharing such a beauty

[felezmall]

مناسبترین قیمت میلگرد زاگرس و همچنین  خرید و فروش انواع  میلگرد ، ورق، ناودانی ، نبشی ،

[قیمت میلگرد]

enjoying all these pictures

[ماشین ظرفشویی صنعتی]

شرکت زاگرس نیشابور
ماشین ظرفشویی صنعتی
فروش انواع تجهزات آشپزخانه صنعتی

[کیش]

بدو کیش سامانه رزرواسیون هتل ها و تفریحات جزیره ی زیبای کیش
هتل های کیش
هتل لیلیوم کیش
تفریحات کیش
تور کیش

[Tricia Clark]

Hi Lucy

I've been catching up with your blog after quite a gap and how wonderful it is to see it all going so very well! Although it's good that I'm very busy with other things now I do miss the Cooper's groups!

I have just started a blog of my own and my most recent post reminded me of you all and so I wrote a bit about you and the difference you made to me at a very difficult time in my life. I may see you at Yarndale this year - but if not I wish you and the other lovely Cooper's women all the very best.

Below is what I wrote:

When I first moved here I joined a fantastic group based in a local cafe. It was set up by Lucy, who has become a bit of a crafting celebrity in recent years! You can see her very popular blog, Attic 24 by clicking its title. It's full of interesting stuff, loads of photos, her own crochet projects, patterns and yarn packs etc. The craft group she set up with a friend, Tracey, was and is hugely popular, attracting all kinds of women from near and far, in Yorkshire and over the border in Lancashire - and much further afield too! I have found myself on several occasions sitting round a table, crafting and chatting over coffee and cake, with women from Germany, France etc and even from Australia and Canada!!! And things have gone from strength to strength, culminating in a craft festival called Yarndale which happens every September and is hugely busy! This year's Yarndale is coming up very soon - find out more here.

The women I met through a shared love of crafting were really friendly and welcoming and I really enjoyed the times I spent with them. Other things have taken over now and I haven't been to the cafe for some time but those women will never know how much they helped and supported me through a very difficult time in my life. With them I was able to forget the hurts, to have fun, to feel connected and a lot less lonely, all of which was enormously important in helping me to build a new and happy life here. I will be forever grateful to them all.

With thanks, Tricia

[قیمت میلگرد میانه]

I live the sun and the summer and I especially love your blog, it makes me happy xx

[Mich Brown]

I love that you’ve posted about your walk to the supermarket along the canal - it was that very walk to the supermarket on a holiday on the canal in Skipton in 2012 which led to me buying a knit and crochet magazine and I started both!

[Julia]

Do you have instructions for the adorable crochet piece that your jug of flowers is sitting on? I would LOVE something like that!
Thanks in advance.

[Lucy @ Attic24]

Typepad HTML Email

Hello,
I bought them many years ago from a local garden centre, but they are easy to find – search on Amazon or Ebay for “spiral plant supports” . Mine are around 180cm/6ft and I’ve used them for all sorts of things over the years, flowers and
veggies love to climb up them!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/vidaXL-Spiral-Plant-Supports-Galvanised/dp/B079S5HRMM/ref=pd_sbs_86_2?_encoding=UTF8pd_rd_i=B079S5HRMMpd_rd_r=15e66823-7986-11e8-ad55-9fcc55f03a63pd_rd_w=MSOcOpd_rd_wg=m4w4tpf_rd_i=desktop-dp-simspf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLEpf_rd_p=5179604776422437276pf_rd_r=4MD80MTV2EWNJDWJNEVBpf_rd_s=desktop-dp-simspf_rd_t=40701psc=1refRID=4MD80MTV2EWNJDWJNEVB

Lucyxxx

[Veggie Mama]

It's always so soothing, coming here! I love seeing the same table cloths, the same walls, the same love of coffee and chocolate, the same canal, the same attic view... it's just the best. year after year x

[Debdor]

Hello, beautiful post as usual. Can I ask you where you got your wavy metal plant supports from please?

[Femke]

Thank you for posting this, Lucy.
Sometimes life seems to go by at such a high speed, the days being filled with big and small things. Some of them are important, most of them aren't.
And then you write this and remind me to stand still every once in a while and capture the little moments of joy in life.

[Helen Lightly]

I live the sun and the summer and I especially love your blog, it makes me happy xx

[NORA McGRANN]

OOOPS! BIG Oops....

That should be the 4th last photo!! x

[NORA McGRANN]

H again |Lucy

Loved this blog and especially your 3rd last photo..
It is beautiful and would be lovely enlarged and hung on a wall somewhere...just beautiful!!

Enjoy summer days and evenings with your family..

Nora xx

[Nikki]

I had to look up Shinrin-yoku. Forest bathing...well who knew! I love to forest bathe too. Keep loving life and all it's simple pleasures and keep sharing them with us too xx

[Hedy]

I love the simplicity of your life and the lovely walks you can take. Here in the states there is nothing like it. I enjoy reading about your life.

[Susan Smith]

Thank you for such a lovely post, which made my heart sing. Bolton Abbey, the canal, your crochet, pretty flowers, cherries & chocolate, all favourites of mine too. Have a great weekend & take care.

[Mojca Srečnik]

Beautiful flowers ,nice pictures, lucky you to live in such environment....just enjoy and be happy. Thank you for sharing such a beauty

[Margaret Simpson]

As always Lucy, your photo's and words are so beautiful. Thank you for all the effort you put into your blog. 😊🇦🇺

[Linda Kay Spooner]

I so very envy you at this time. Here in Texas we are already in the mid to upper 90 degrees F. This coming Sunday we are expecting 100+ for 3 days. We went from winter to 1 or 2 weeks of spring to dead summer. The grass is already brown and burned looking. Flowers are struggling to hold on but there are hanging on. So enjoy your cool evenings and walks out in early evening. I love your posts and pictures of around your area. Please will you name some of the beautiful very old buildings. Keep up the work. Thank you Linda.

[Barb]

Hi Lucy, enjoying all these pictures of your summer over there. Love the ones along the canal! I am waiting on one of your yarn packs to arrive, the Harmony blanket one, so I can start it. I love to have something to crochet when watching TV in the evenings, or to take to our shady front porch in the afternoons! We have had heat here in Ohio I don't think you have in England, 93 Fahrenheit two days ago! Don't know what that is Celsius but it was muggy with it, so stayed indoors with air conditioning on. Much too early to have been that hot here in the northeast Ohio.Today is perfect summer weather though.Hope you are having a good week, sounds like you are always busy.