Well, the first round of Sock Madness came and I completed my fastest ever pair of socks…they were a simple knit in stocking stitch using stripes of solid yarn and variegated yarn.

I cast on when the pattern arrived in my in-box at 11.45am Saturday and grafted the toe on the second sock at 1.15pm on Sunday (and yes, I did go to bed, and eat, and do washing….)

Pattern – Mad Cow by Jennifer Booker-Young – Sock Madness round 1

Yarn – Opal Uni in sky blue, Opal Petticoat shade 1295 (left over from Katy’s Chocolate Sundae socks).

Needles – faithful Addi bamboo 2.5mm dpn’s

The combination of the sky blue Uni and the self striping Petticoat in shades of pink, apricot and chocolate works much better than I had expected. It reminds me of floral summer fabrics (in fact I have a summer dress in just these colours)

As you can see the sun was out when I took the finished pictures…yesterday was a perfect Spring day here in Buckinghamshire. I even managed to hang washing to dry OUTSIDE!!! Now that to me is a sign that Spring has arrived! Hooray, no more wet washing hanging on clothes horses and radiators all over the house! Hooray, clean clothes that smell fresh and haven’t used up electricity in the tumble dryer!

The weather was so lovely that J and I just had to get out in it so we walked down to Higginson Park which is on the side of the River Thames in Marlow. I did warn J that everybody else in Marlow was going to be there but he didn’t believe me till we arrived and from about 200 yards away could here the screams of thousands of children on swings and climbing frames –

Still, it’s a big park and if you walked past the play area and the ice-cream/coffee shop and further down to the river you can lose the crowds a little

The river is really high at the moment and running very, very fast but there are hundreds of swans, ducks and geese around. The geese are migrating northwards at the moment to the Arctic circle where they breed and spend summer but many stop off in England for a rest on their way.

The swans are busy preparing themselves for the arrival of this years cygnets and glide around gracefully amongst the visitors. You can see they are the locals telling each other “you just can’t move for tourists at this time of year, can you? And they’re so rude! They push in front of you, not so much as an “excuse me”, take all the best food. Really, I’ll be glad when they’ve gone”

This is just how we feel in the summer when you can’t move in town for the tourists!!!!

A local swan and a visiting Greylag Goose

The water meadows alongside the river are flooded and the sun coming through the trees looked lovely

If you want to see more photos they are on flickr

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